The Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 4
by Kojiokida2
Summary: Returning to the ruined future as Kain sets down his plans for the war against the Divus and their God, Raziel searches for a reason and a purpose and above all a future for himself in a world that seems to have none itself. But perhaps the seeds of such a future lie buried in the discarded past.
1. Prologue

(Right... Now, I know what you're all thinking. Soul Reaver 4?! You didn't say you were going to do anything like this! Well - I was halfway through the planning stages for Insurrection and Equinoix when I realized I was about to make a huge blunder that would not be in the best interests of my readers. That's not what these fanfictions are for. When I started writing these compositions it was merely me being my LoK fan self writing a good story but this saga has grown and become...well...something more. This is now my earnest attempt to complete the LoK story exactly how Amy Henning and her talented team might well have done so and anything less than my utter best would be unacceptable. I've pushed around what I intend to do. What's coming your way right now is this story and Insurrection, both being written at the same time so you get a large helping of Janos and Raziel to enjoy. Equinox has been battered around to be much better and will come as the finale to this series after these two. Yes, that's right - the end is in sight. Fate does indeed promise more twists but those twists are coming to an end. Vae Victis. Ps - Cover for this coming soon. Curse you Skyrim!)

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_"For much of my existence I have had my sight firmly set on the past, gazing back on all I had lost. One life after another was torn from me, identities and personalities stripped away one by one until the barest shred of the true soul was left. Am I arrogant enough to assume who I am now is my core? My true self? I have no way of knowing. But one thing is certain. My eyes have been fixed on the past far too long. It is time to claw my way out of the past, beyond the present, and into the future."_

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Soul Reaver 4: Legacy of Kain

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Everything was grey. The stones were grey. The sky was grey. The earth itself was grey. Any colour had been bleached away slowly over the passage and neglect of hundreds of years. This place was a testament to the inevitable and eternal patience of death itself. Once it had been a mighty city, one of the gems of Kain's empire. Its chambers full of light and colour, the finest silks and furs from across the land, riches beyond imagining and wealth displayed with pride.

The Razielim capital had truly been a marvel, the greatest city of the mightiest clan. It had been from here that they had ruled their lesser brethren, their place at the seat of power at the Sanctuary assuring them of a bright and glorious future. It had been the way of things, they had believed, the natural order that they were superior. They were the Razielim, after all, the offspring of the mighty right hand of Kain. It was their right and duty to rule not only the domesticated Humans, but the lesser breeds of Vampire that were the other clans.

Raziel wondered exactly what must have gone through their minds when those so-called lesser breeds turned on them. Incredulity, anger, denial, and then perhaps finally fear. The once invincible and vaunted Razielim had been dragged down from the high position  
and butchered like cattle. Their invincibility had been an illusion. The clans had suffered their arrogance, daring not to oppose the right hand of Kain openly. As soon as that protection had been torn away they had seen how truly defenseless they really were.

Now their city had been left to decay in the elements, abandoned even by the Vampire Hunters who had retreated back to more defensible positions around their Citadel. A thin but still obscuring smog had settled on the ruins, giving the crumbling structures even more the feel of an eternal graveyard. The air was cold and still, lifeless.

Raziel supposed he was the only thing left on the face of Nosgoth that cared about this place. Decayed, crumbled, and ruined it might be, but in some small corner of his being this shattered and broken collection of tumbled buildings was home.

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**_"This place continued to draw me, like a siren call I could not ignore. The ghosts were still here and I could not be sure I was not one of them."_**

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Silently, his attention wandering, he sat with his legs splayed on a large podium. His back was to the remains of a once impressive statue of himself holding aloft the sword that had been his badge of office. Formed from the finest marble, it had stood overlooking the main square of the city and been the pinnacle of the city's artistry. Now only the stumps of the legs remained, the details worn down to illegibility and covered in a black tarnish.

From here, though, he could see out across the breadth of the main city square and its large arboretum at the far end. At least it had been an arboretum before, a fine collection of exotic plants and trees brought from the farthest corners of Nosgoth. It had been one of the greatest botanical assemblages in the world. All that remained by now, of course, was a stone shell of a building, grey and worn down like everything else, but the telltale markings of what had to have been an intense fire were still there.

In his mind, Raziel experienced once more that peculiar double vision. Inlaid on top of one another he saw this city as it had once been, teeming with the life of his kind, and as it was now, an empty husk. Familiar faces and voices seemed to hover just beyond the range of his perception, so close it seemed as if he could reach out and pull them back into true existence.

Raziel sat there, allowing his mind to indulge in the fantasy of slipping back to a time when he truly felt fully armoured in unquestionable power and iron confidence, where the mere sight of himself in a mirror had not invoked disgust, but satisfaction.

It was not self-pity and nostalgic yearning that drove him to do so, however, but rather a deeper, more insistent need. He was here for one reason only. To wrestle with the ghosts that had claim on his soul and one by one put them to final rest. It was a grueling and painful battle even if outwardly he appeared bemused. The memories, the laments and regrets were all a strong anchor binding him in place. As such they had to be dealt with and finally overcome. It was the only way to move forward, to embrace a future. So he set to that task grimly, taking each one of those regrets and letting them dissolve within his subconscious.

Kain, of course, had not really understood why this had been necessary. He had certainly said he had and not argued against Raziel making his side journey, but the irritation and frustration had been clear in his eyes. Kain wanted to get to work immediately. Their enemies were gaining strength and seemed on the verge of a final victory while any potential allies they might call upon were scattered and divided.

Exactly what Kain thought he could do to correct that situation eluded Raziel. Scion of Balance he might be, but the era of total clan solidarity and dominance was long since passed. If there were any surviving Zephonim, Dumahim, or any of the others, their minds had been lost to centuries of inherited corruption. The clans themselves were no more and with the passing of time would come the fading of their memory. Who precisely was there to call on? The Serioli perhaps, as he knew they had pledged their loyalty to Kain, but they were a limited force and vastly outnumbered by all other potential enemies.

The very world itself seemed to reflect this ruin. Past its prime, impotent and forgotten, fading and bled dry. What was there to galvanize out of this husk of a land called Nosgoth to offer a defense against the final hammer blow? Returning to this blighted time once more through the ancient vortex of the Chronoplast, Raziel had felt himself overcome by a sense of utter hopelessness for their situation as well as a grim certainty that he had come into sight of the end.

It was a strange feeling. It was like a tired, weary fatigue that swept over him and made him question what the point of going on truly was.

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**_"I did not know what manner of plan Kain had in mind for the defeat of our ultimate enemy, or if he had one at all. While perhaps I was committed to aiding him in executing such a campaign, I found myself apprehensive and reluctant. Whatever the outcome of battle, whoever the victor, I sensed personal oblivion at the end of it."_**

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The sense of presence where there had been only solitude before made him open his eyes. As expected, there she was, her form still hazy and indistinct, little more than a suggestion of an outline in the gloom. She was more a ghost than the distant memories that even now faded from his mind, and far more real.

"You are so certain of annihilation?" Her musical voice asked wryly of him in the silence of his soul. "You were certain once before and you were wrong then." She spoke, of course, of the blade. That memory was one he would never be able to quite purge from his being. The decision to allow his consumption by the Soul Reaver had been motivated by the utmost necessity and had been a sensation and experience he never wanted to repeat.

Slowly Raziel got back up to his feet and looked out, past the remains of the city and to the horizon. The smog and clouds were so obscuring it seemed as if the world were shrinking in on itself.

"This is different." He replied wearily.

"How so?"

"I am not sure, it just is." Placing the talons of both hands on the bones of his hips, he sighed and let his gaze wander again, the final ebb and flow of the memory of this place washing against him like an impotent tide.

"You cannot exist with nullification as your only horizon." Slowly but surely her form came into full being beside him. Her face uncorrupted and whole, Ariel watched him out of the corner of one bright blue eye. Insubstantial as always, the former Balance Guardian was now bound to him as she had once been bound to haunt the Pillars themselves. Trapped within the Reaver blade together, their souls had comingled and become inseparable. Joined by spiritual bonds beyond comprehension, it seemed that one could not exist without the other. "This existence we share is perhaps not what either of us would have aspired to, but we are here." She observed. Raziel would have smiled at that comment if he could.

"And we make the best of it?" He asked directly. Ariel floated away from him, her translucent face darkening a little as she faded slowly back to her corrupted form, the flesh on the left-hand side of her face fading to reveal the skull beneath.

"Simply put, but yes." She admitted. Raziel dropped down from the podium and walked out across the square, the remains of his once beautiful wings billowing out behind him.

"But of course this can only be if you choose." He said almost bitterly as she floated behind him, unable to leave his side. "I've been told that perhaps I am the one and only thing to walk Nosgoth that truly has free will." As he moved he looked down at his hands. Swathed in the thick linen wrappings that were all that remained of his imperial regalia, they were ghastly, bones held together with scorched muscle and sinew. From one hand the wraith blade would flourish, his own soul in the form of a sword having learnt the ability from the soul of Ishtar. On the other was that strange device that had acted like a shield on the arm of his original incarnation and predecessor. It was bonded to him and would not come loose, even following him back and forth across the Spectral Realm. It was a beautifully crafted artifact, a golden disc with the heads of three birds with open beaks forming a triangle.

"I do not know if that is true or to what extent, but there are times when I have felt the lack of choice most keenly. What good does free will do me when my options are so limited? What good is the choice of one terrible fate when the alternative is equally distasteful?" At that Ariel just smiled and the corruption faded almost instantly from her face.

"Do men complain of the lack of choice when they flip a coin?" She asked. Those words resonated profoundly and Raziel stopped in mid-stride, going very still. He stood there in silence for perhaps an entire minute, his blank eyes wide. Then he turned to look at her and in his expression there was a mixture of emotions for that pointed reminder; happiness, gratitude, and perhaps even amusement.

"No, they wait for it to land on its edge." He replied softly.

Then the dust and fog around them moved, picked up from where it lazily hung, and began to swirl. Raziel looked around sharply at this because it was not the wind stirring the dust. The air was dead and still all around them. The dust swirled, coming together in dozens of separate small funnels of spinning matter. Then they began to take proper shape.

Raziel raised his arm and with a screech of feral hunger his own soul emerged, forged into the shape of the wraith blade. He had seen this before, so he knew what was coming. There were ten of them, Human-shaped figures made of clay and terracotta. Clad in archaic styled armour, they were life-sized animated figures of dust and dirt. Once they were fully formed the Homunculi drew their weapons and advanced.

Supernatural constructs for the Divus, the homunculi were neither living nor dead. They were artificial beings, shaped and formed into soldiers to serve their need for enforcers. At the forefront was an officer, one of the stronger of their kind and distinguishable by the plumed helmet it wore. Brandishing a large two-handed blade, it cried out in a strange, emotionless voice; **_"_**_Mors__ mortuibus!"_

"Death for the Dead." Raziel translated flatly as they advanced on him in precise lines of three. His eyes narrowed to silts before he ran forward. "Or perhaps destruction to the non-living!"

Several of them charged him, short swords drawing back to stab and slash. Their intent to pin him between them and allow the others to rush and overwhelm him with sheer numbers was obvious. Perhaps they had grown used to doing battle with Kain, whose fighting style allowed him free range of movement but was limited in how dexterous he could be. Raziel, on the other hand, was not so hampered.

His stringy, emaciated body allowed him to twist and turn in ways one burdened with organs and flesh could not. Sidestepping and bending his spine near entirely backwards, the blue wraith dodged the slashes and retaliated instantly with a roundhouse kick. This sent two of the homunculi tumbling to the ground. The third staggered back but before it could regain its footing, Raziel brought the wraith blade across its midsection in a savage slash. The construct's top half separated from the bottom and it crashed to the ground, the disgusting liquid interior of the thing spilling out.

As others came at him from the sides he advanced clear from their lunges and retaliated with the blade at his side. Some he knocked into the air and blasted away with a telekinetic bolt. Others he sent flying to crash into the spikes lining the walls of the former Razielim city where they exploded into fragments of clay.

One came at him from behind, dual-wielding a pair of curved war axes that looked almost Sarafan in design. With a flying leap the construct brought both weapons down towards the blue wraith's seemingly unprotected back. That was when Raziel spun and as he did, he made a gesture with his free hand and took hold of the homunculus with his telekinesis. Enhanced by Turel's soul to a point where his own mental powers rivaled Kain's, he swung the body of his would-be attacker around in a wide arc. It smashed into several other homunculi attempting an attack, bowling them all over and sending them flying backwards before crumbling into dust.

Then he saw her. She was standing off to one side, just out of range of the grand melee of battle beside one of the few standing pillars left in the ruins. She was a strangely tall woman, dressed in a tarnished black leather bodice and leggings with a wide brimmed hat hiding most of her face. He had never seen her before and as she stood in the shadows like that it was hard to make out anything beyond the obvious. She was no Vampire, he could tell that immediately and what was also apparent without further inspection was that she was Divus, perhaps the very one who was orchestrating this attack.

With a snarl of anger he took a step towards her but several homunculi immediately blocked his way. As one swung at him with a sword he ducked and rolled clear of the attack and slashed at another with the wraith blade, cutting its legs out from under it. As it fell the blue wraith rebounded, doing a backwards summersault over another. As he came down behind it he brought the talons of his free hand through its outer clay shell, ripping it open. As the third made for him he cut it off by moving far quicker, smashing both feet into its chest with a furious lunge through the air. The impact broke its chest open and it collapsed down to the ground in pieces.

Coming around sharply Raziel saw the officer. It was coming at him at full speed, the huge broadsword raised over its head. Acting instinctively, he raised his left arm to ward off the intended blow. As he did so the device attached to his wrist there flared out, three points of arching metal snapping out from the carved birds' heads. A shimmering aura of protective light formed in a circle between those three points and when the two-handed blade came down, it bounced off the shield as if swung at the side of a castle wall. The blade itself cracked along its length at the impact with an audible crunch and then finally broke in two.

Raziel retaliated at once, the wraith blade piercing the torso and emerging out the far side. Then with one sudden jerking motion he brought the blade up and across, slicing the construct in half from the waist to the right shoulder. It collapsed to the ground, and in breaking into dust on impact admits the gurgling, disgusting goo of its interior.

All around him the homunculi lay eviscerated, collapsed into broken piles of clay which were already beginning to return to the dust from whence they had come. With no more enemies to fight, the wraith blade died away and the shield projected by the device at his wrist vanished, the three spires of metal retracting back inside with several loud clicks.

Looking up quickly, although he hardly expected anything else, he found that this battle's observer and most probable architect was gone. He walked over slowly to the spot where he had seen her. The only traces she had been real and not some figment of his imagination were the footprints left in the dust and dirt where she had stood.

The clapping that suddenly echoed through the courtyards and ruined halls was slow and deliberate and at the sound of it, the blue wraith looked all around sharply. The chuckling that accompanied it was deep and mocking, full of derisive mirth and sadistic enjoyment. Ariel manifested beside him, her face once more taking on the skull of corruption as she too sought the source of the sound.

It did not take Raziel long to locate their chuckling observer and he turned sharply, looking up at the rooftop of the ruin of the arboretum's high ceiling.

There he was. Sitting on the roof with one leg cocked over the other, his hands coming together in that mocking applause, was an Ancient Vampire. In that specific style of white toga and silver bracers over his forearms and shins, Raziel knew him for another Divus immediately. His wings were raised over him, casting a shadow that obscured his face from close scrutiny.

"Marvelous! Simply marvellous!" He said with the ripple of that chuckle still in his voice. His lips were spread in a wide, self-satisfied smirk. "Truly spectacular entertainment."

Raziel flourished his right arm and with a screech his soul burst forth, manifesting once more in the form of the ravenous wraith blade. The sword flared intently and he could feel its eagerness, his own hunger for the energy of a soul reflected and magnified many times. The Divus just sat there watching him, apparently unconcerned by the gesture. Then he sighed theatrically.

"Oh, pardon me, where are my manners?" Raising one hand to his head he made a gesture that was a blend of a wave and a dismissal and was filled with deliberate insult.

"I salute the former honoured King of Fanum-Divus." He cocked his head and that same grin widened to show off his fangs which gleamed even in the faint light under his wings. "And of course, Ariel, departed spirit of the last Balance Guardian."

Within the core of his being Raziel could feel her shrink back in surprise and chagrin, clearly baffled that he was able to sense and discern her presence. Usually she was only visible to others when she permitted it. Raziel kept his gazed fixed on their observer, the Reaver flickering and burning at his side.

"Do I know you?" He asked flatly. The Divus slowly stood up and as he did he raised his wings and swung them back.

"Yes, of course. Allow me, then, to reintroduce myself." As the light fell over his face Raziel recognized him. The slick black hair and the strange spider-like marking across the left-hand side of his face were quite distinctive. Atop his brow was that circlet of gold he had also seen before, but on the forehead of another. Theatrically he swept down in a mocking, over-the-top formal bow.

"Asmodeus-Divus, new King of Fanum-Divus and the Scribe of Heaven." He even claimed the titles in a mocking tone and purposely lisped. Raziel kept his gaze quite steady. Now he saw the face and heard the name he recognized this one. He had seen him before in the impossible city of Fanum-Divus at the side of his former incarnation. The crown on his brow, though, did not belong to him.

"You replaced Raziel-Divus." The blue wraith said, speaking aloud the thought.

"Indeed." Asmodeus confirmed, straightening back up to his full height. Placing both hands on his hips he looked down, studying Raziel from the higher vantage point. "How odd, though, that you refer to your past self as if he were a separate person." He said. Raziel's eyes narrowed sharply.

"He was." The statement was filled with all the conviction he could muster. Asmodeus' answering grin was vicious.

"Oh, I beg to differ." He said and raised a talon, pointing down at him almost accusingly. "You yearn for what was taken from you, you ache for the lost dignities, influence, and power." He gestured around with the other hand. "Why else would you be here, walking amongst the shadows of your former glory?"

"To put it to rest." Raziel tried to keep his tone neutral, but there was an edge to it now as anger began to seep into his mind. As if satisfied with the annoyance he was making, Asmodeus' grin widened.

"Do you honestly believe it to be that simple?" His own voice was scornful. "Everything was stripped from you, scrap by scrap your pride was torn away. Now you have only your alliance to Kain and do you imagine that will last? There is only one logical recourse for a man in your situation. Kain is doomed."

With a sudden flaring of his wings, the Ancient Vampire leapt from the top of the arboretum. His wings slowed his descent as he landed directly before the blue wraith, though a prudent distance away. Raziel noticed he was armed at this close distance. At his side was the large silver flail the wraith had seen with him before. Anyone capable of wielding so cumbersome a weapon with any degree of skill was not to be underestimated in battle.

"Now it's my turn to beg to differ." The blue wraith said coldly, watching his antagonist intently for even the slightest move that could mean an attack.

"Such surprising loyalty." Asmodeus remarked sardonically and he began to circle him, half-turned so he too could watch for any danger sign. The expression on his face was relaxed but his eyes missed nothing. "What binds you to Kain now? To the man who had you thrown into the Abyss and then used you as a pawn to further his own ambitions?"

"My motivations are my own." Raziel replied but Asmodeus dismissed the response with a derisive snort.

"What motivations can matter when you fight for this mere insignificant world?" He asked and raised one hand up towards the sky. "What you defend is worth nothing. It is a dried out ball of dirt surrounded by infinite possibilities. Infinite worlds beyond worlds!" Raziel eyed his movements carefully, turning to follow the new Divus King as he circled.

"A privilege reserved for the chosen few, I am sure." He retorted, severely unimpressed by the claims. "The rest..."

"The rest get to stay here and die, what of it?" Asmodeus cut him off sharply and with heavy contempt, making a sharp cutting gesture with one hand. "It's an extraordinary destiny for extraordinary people. The blessed chosen few, the crème of the crop. Only the few who are graced by the master's favour deserve such a blessing - the gift of true immortality that comes only with the title of 'Divus'." Raziel pondered his stern words and slowly his eyes widened at their meaning.

"You deny death? You would not turn the Wheel?" He asked. The new king of the Divus came to a stop suddenly, his head lowered. Slowly his shoulders began to shake as the unmistakable sound of laughter began to bubble up from him. Asmodeus let it rise and come out, his laugh developing into a hysterical cackle.

"I love it when people spout that nonsense!" He declared with utmost joy, his eyes alight with a sick mirth. "Every time anyone opens their mouth and talks about the Wheel as if it actually meant a thing I have to control myself so that I don't explode at the wonderful jest!" He waged a talon at Raziel, his free hand wrapped around his heaving sides. "Let me tell you something, my dear former monarch.

"Generation after generation of Vampires and Humans have been killing each other, each convinced that death would allow them to ascend and then be reborn in a cycle of purification. Pastors have assured their congregations of their eternal reward and ultimate blessing at being a part of that holy Wheel. A lovely little story that allows the faithful to die peacefully in their beds when their time comes." Then his voice dropped into a low, menacing but triumphant growl, his expression a delighted sneer. "But we could tell them their souls became clouds upon death and they still would have believed us. It's a riot. The greatest joke ever told."

Raziel was not quite so gullible as he had once admittedly been. Asmodeus was no Moebius either and his attempt to manipulate left a lot to be desired. Raziel saw this effort for what it was, an attempt to manipulate him, to incite him to rash action and rage. That did not, however, make the new Divus King's words any less provocative or untrue. His once indifferent benefactor and Master, the so-called Elder, had claimed much about the Wheel of Fate and Raziel had seen little of what he claimed to actually be factual.

A cold, icy fury settled over him. He felt perfectly focused and in control, but determined. There was a goal to be achieved, an outcome to assure, and seeing that pleasing end goal somehow banished all the doubts and laments which had plagued him.

"I have no need to revert." He said coldly. "I have a new role for myself." Asmodeus' sneer did not lessen.

"Do tell."

Slowly the ghoul raised the wraith blade and pointed its flickering tip towards the would-be King of Heaven. The gesture was unmistakable.

"I am going to kill you." It was not a promise or a threat. It was a simple stated fact. Asmodeus' sneer faded as his eyes dropped down to the point of that flickering ghostly sword. Though a slight smile still parted his lips when he looked back up.

"No, no, it seems I was wrong before." He said and his tone was excited. "THIS is entertainment! Not one I think I'll deprive myself of." Step by step he began to back away, his arms open wide. It was an invitation. "You are most certainly welcome to try, but you'll find me a harder nut to crack than my predecessor."

There was a sudden rush high above, the clouds bellowing and blasted to one side in a sudden gust of powerful wind. Caught off guard, Raziel looked up in alarm to see a terrible, elongated shape come hurtling across the sky out of the dark. Its wings were massive and webbed, spread wide to cast a horrifying shadow. It came from nowhere and so fast it left the blue wraith completely taken aback by its mere presence, even though it was travelling much too fast for him to see it clearly.

As the thing passed over, Asmodeus leapt into the air. A few beats of his own wings had him flying up to join the creature.

"I'll be waiting!" He called down with one large taunting laugh, catching a hold of the creature's hide and hauling himself onto its back.

Raziel stared after him and the strange creature which had appeared seemingly from nowhere to come to his aid. As it flew away into the dark he made out its general shape, an elongated gigantic body with a slender, long tail and bat-like wings. Its shape was easily recognizable but its presence baffled and mystified.

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**_"A winged serpent. Many a legend amongst Men told of such a creature being a harbinger of destruction and the ultimate death of the world. If its appearance meant to mark the beginning of the end, then it was centuries overdue."_**

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	2. Sanctuary

Much of Nosgoth's western highlands had been broken up by the advancing abyss into towering fjords and cliff heights, many of which pierced the near constant grey haze of the sky. Clouds of uninterrupted smog rolled down the sharp valleys between each cliff, casting long and perpetual shadows so dark as to be called night. Once these towering and rolling hills had risen high to the mountain range far to the north, dotted with many outposts and fortresses of the Razielim. In days past caverns beneath such hills and mountains had even contained small sanctuaries for fledglings to be brought up and trained. Such caves would have long since collapsed by now.

Scaling the towering walls, the wind causing the ruined wings behind him to billow out, Raziel thought over his encounter with the new king of Fanum Divus. Exactly why Asmodeus had made such a clumsy and obvious attempt to goad him into a confrontation was unclear. Doubtless he had something to gain out of it, but what that was eluded Raziel's reasoning. That did not make his death any less desirable or necessary, however. One way or another he _was_ going to kill that arrogant fop. But he was determined not to fall into any traps along the way.

"And if you can't avoid them?" Ariel's voice asked him skeptically from the core of their merged essence. "Why push this if you know it's a trap?"

With some effort Raziel hauled himself up and over the edge of the cliff and crouched there, his talons dug into the stone as he observed the valley below. From this height the once mighty capital of his clan was invisible through the smog that kept rolling in. He had glided from this precipice, carried by the gift of Marduk's soul all the way to his former stronghold, riding the air currents. Getting down had certainly been a lot easier than climbing back up.

"Because when your enemy knows you're coming and when you know he knows doesn't change the fact that the battle must take place." He said out loud. "That is the nature of war."

"Is that what this is, then, Raziel?" She asked him and her soul seemed to quiver with the notion. "A war? The final war? The war to decide, once and for all, the fate of Nosgoth?" Her tone was partly mocking and sarcastic.

"Wouldn't that be nice?" Raziel replied sardonically, his eyebrows raising. "The final chapter in this insanely long book." He shook his head. "It's been a tedious read."

"It had its duller moments." She agreed in a soft, subdued tone, undoubtedly thinking of the years of loneliness and despair she had spent trapped in the ruins of the Pillars. Despite some progress she had made, that seemingly endless imprisonment haunted her. "But we're not at the final page just yet. The book might still have dangerous twists."

The wraith frowned and stood up from his crouch, the harsh wind tossing his short black hair around his head.

"This metaphor is getting convoluted." He concluded and turned to begin up the rocky path he had come down. The route was treacherous and steep. Any normal being would never have been able to traverse it without the risk of falling to their death. For him, however, it did not take long and after a moment of undignified scrabbling he came out onto the top plateau. His third travelling companion was waiting for him as he said he would, sat right where he had left him.

A stout redhead with a short beard and piercing eyes sat naked atop the cliff, peering out at the distant southern horizon. His name was Ewoden. He had begun life as a slave working to quarry stone on behalf of the Ancient Vampires, but had later been recruited to fight for Humanity during Moebius' uprising. Moebius had rewarded that service by selling him and many companions to the Divus to become test animals for the warped experiments of Ambraxas-Divus, to become Nosgoth's first Werewolves. Raziel had encountered him and his pack as prisoners in the bowels of the impossible city of Fanum-Divus. He had managed to accompany both himself and Kain back into the regular flow of time out of Fanum-Divus' suspended void and then forward to this bleak future of the land itself.

"Such a visit was necessary? You wasted a lot of time and I think time is a commodity in short supply." He said as the wraith approached, his voice oddly accented. All the Werewolves in Fanum-Divus had had that strange lilt to their voice. At least the ones originally from Nosgoth did. Like Vampires, the Werewolves were immortal and lived so long as they took sustenance from their prey. The pack that Raziel had encountered had had to recruit new members from the blond haired and golden eyed slave race of Men which had been bred for purpose in the time-displaced city.

"It was time well spent regardless." Raziel replied. Ewoden did not look up, his gaze fixed to the southern horizon. From this distance the southern coastline was not visible and much was obscured in fog and smoke besides. It seemed as if all of Nosgoth was enveloped in a continually rolling and choking sooty miasma.

The wraith frowned, looking at the stern and focused expression on the man's face. He had wondered why Ewoden had desired to come with him to this spot. He had given no reason why other than wanting to see what had become of Nosgoth in this time, and Raziel suspected he had not been entirely candid about his motives. Now, however, he sensed a change. His companion had made a decision and Raziel suspected what that decision was.

"You're not coming?" He asked almost rhetorically. Ewoden shook his head, holding one arm up to his chin atop a knee. Clothes got in the way of his transformations to and from his bestial form so he did not wear them unless necessary, but he was still adorned with the shackles from his days as a captive, complete with some chain hanging from each wrist that clinked whenever he moved his arms. They were kept in good condition too, showing evidence of upkeep against rust. Impressive for items which much have lasted for centuries. Exactly why he kept such mementos, Raziel had never bothered to ask.

"No. I have things to do." He said quietly. Raziel crossed his arms over his emaciated chest, one eyebrow raised quizzically.

"And here you were accusing _**me**_ of wasting time." He prodded half-mockingly. Ewoden's lip twisted into a smile at one corner.

"The Divus, for all their holy pronouncements, are an evil. Perhaps the greatest evil Nosgoth has ever known." He remarked.

"Part of it, at least." Raziel agreed dryly. Ewoden hoisted himself up to his feet, completely unconscious of his naked body.

"They must be defeated if this bruised land is to ever heal." He said as he half-turned to look back at the blue wraith. "But my people come first." Raziel knew something of this. When Ewoden had helped him and Kain battle Ambraxas and the monstrous and deformed chimera he called Balor, Ewoden had taken some pleasure in tearing open Ambraxas' chest and feasting on his heart. He had called it the fulfillment of his first oath. One of three.

"The second oath?" He asked intuitively. Ewoden nodded again.

"Aye. To find a place where we can exist, safe and away from any who would hunt us like animals and treat us like beasts." The Werewolf in man form sounded almost wistful as if he spoke of a paradise from the depths of myth. Perhaps to one such as he and those of his pack, such a thing was like a fairytale. Skeptically Raziel turned and looked out across the wasteland. As far as one could see to both the south and the east the land was a uniform grey, dusty and utterly lifeless.

"You think to find such a place in this static hell?" The wraith asked without bothering to hide his disbelief. Ewoden only grunted.

"There are always diamonds in the rough." He said.

"Or needles in haystacks." Raziel retorted ironically. The man slowly began to spread his arms, the chains on either side of him clinking loudly as he moved.

"Depends how you go about looking." He remarked and then without another word he began to change. His body swelled out, bulging muscle pushing the skin up as his hair descended down over his back to become a thick coat of fur. His face twisted, spreading out into a long canine muzzle, and a long bushy tail sprouted out from the base of his spine. Some Vampires, Kain amongst them, could achieve a lupine form, but the Werewolves' alternative shape was monstrous; a blend of humanoid proportions and feral features.

Even before the transformation was complete Ewoden vaulted down off the side of the precipice, leaping from rock to rock with precision and grace. Soon he was lost from sight in the gloom and not long after even the sound of him faded. Alone now, Raziel stood looking after him for a long moment. Ewoden had left Fanum-Divus, a city where nothing seemed to change, forever locked outside of time, to come here in search of something new for his people. Some chance at a better life, some peace finally. He preferred this hellish, dead land over living in the side corridors of the Divus' domain where they had been hunted like animals and tolerated as inevitable vermin.

What was odder, though, was Ewoden had seen the capabilities of the Chronoplast time-streaming Device when Kain had brought them all forward. He could have been sent to any period of Nosgoth's history, some quiet century where the land had been kept lush and verdant by the Pillars. But when that had been suggested to him, the Werewolf had flatly refused. Although he had not given a reason, Raziel suspected he knew why. What good would it do his people to live in such quiet times if such a terrible future was ahead of them anyway? Far better to confront the hard times head-on and carve out a place for themselves there, where the future beyond that was still a blank slate.

That thought brought his attention sharply back to the present situation. There was still much left to do and the others were waiting for him. Taking hold of his wings, the blue wraith stepped off the high ledge and into the air current. The gift of Marduk's soul reinforced the tattered remains of his once mighty wings and like a kite he was carried up into the air, rising higher and higher. Once he had a good elevation above the ruined landscape he carried on, riding the winds farther and farther west and north.

As the horizon rolled towards him he could see the distant, dried shores of a colossal lakebed. Once the Lake of Tears had stood there, the largest inland body of water in the world and home to the Ancient Vampire Citadel. The Citadel itself had long since collapsed into nothingness and the lake was gone, dried up perhaps an eon ago. The only sign that it had ever been there was the black smudge of clay and gravel that had once been its shoreline.

As Raziel finally managed to soar overhead, he saw two small figures stood on that shore. Right where they said they would meet him. Quickly the blue wraith began to circle, losing altitude gradually. He certainly could not drop from such a height without the impact damaging his body so badly he would be forced back into the Spectral Realm. Once he was a few hundred feet he began to drop more steadily, almost diving down, occasionally letting the air catch his wings to slow himself. Then finally he dropped to the ground, a small cloud of dust billowing out from his feet.

Kain was crouched by the edge of the lakeshore, grimly looking out across it towards the mountains on the far side. While in Fanum-Divus, Kain had suffered some losses to his appearance. His customary banner which had hung from his right shoulder was gone, as was the strap that had held it in place. A ribbon which had tied his white hair back was also gone and it now hung loose down to his waist. A brass gauntlet of ancient design adorned his right hand and in his left he held his iconic weapon, the Reaver Blade. Without the straps he had worn before, he could no longer sling the weapon across his back and thus had to carry it. Secured and held fast into his new gauntlet was another ancient relic, the Hylden-crafted artifact known as the Nexus Stone. Inside that stone were the screaming, insane multitude of souls of Hylden which had died during the Ancient War between their race and the Ancient Vampires. Millions of them were locked away within its deceptively small jade orb.

The Reaver Blade had been a difficult weapon to retrieve. Raziel had had to contend with its thief, a disgusting, grubby soul by the name of Elzevir to claim it once more. It had been the deciding factor in the siege of Malek's bastion and the defeat of his own first incarnation, Raziel-Divus. It hummed with power and energy, flaring with spiritual force now Kain held it. In the hands of the purified Scion of Balance, the Reaver's true potential had been unlocked.

Beside him sat upon a rock with her knees up and arms folded over them was a far more bizarre figure. She was nothing but pieces of armour, moving together as though worn by an actual being. But there was nothing inside that garment. She _**was**_ the armour, Sarafan in style but warped into a far more feminine appearance by her possession of it. Kain had called her 'Umah.' Raziel did not presently recognize where he had heard the name before but it did seem familiar from somewhere. Kain treated her like an ally and did not question her presence whatsoever. Since coming forward to this broken, static period in Nosgoth's history she had been silent, distant, lost in thought. In her lap she carried the helmet of some other set of armour, battered and dented, and did not seem to want to let go of it.

As Raziel approached, Kain did not turn around but merely stood back up, resting both hands on the pommel of the Reaver.

"The Pillars are gone." The blue wraith said flatly, looking at the Vampire's silent back.

"I know." Kain replied distantly.

"Even healed as you are there is nothing left for you to restore." Perhaps Kain's intent had been to return to the Pillars so that the Pillar of Balance might accept him as a legitimate Guardian at last and begin the long awaited healing process. But with the shattering of the Binding and the final collapse of the Pillars themselves into dust, that was no longer an option.

"I know." Kain repeated and it was clear from his tone that his mind was elsewhere.

"And yet you still have hope?" At Raziel's choice of words, Kain slowly turned then to look at him sidelong. His lip was twisted up into a smile of wry amusement.

"That's one gift I'm not letting go of." He said and the firm will and resolution in his eyes was profound. "As long as we stand there will always be hope." Raziel blinked, glanced past Kain once to the featureless desolation of the lakebed behind him and then back again.

"So here we stand, three alone in a world on the brink of collapse. But at least we have '_hope._'" He didn't bother to hide the sarcasm. Kain chuckled deep in his throat at that and looked over to where Umah sat. She was looking at them both silently. The helmet she had for a head did not display any emotion visually.

"So what now, then?" Raziel asked, kicking at a small stone to cast it away from him.

"We look for allies." Kain replied and beckoned up to Umah with one hand. Without a word she slipped down from the rock and approached, still holding that other helmet in both hands. It too was Sarafan in style but warped. The new features were distinctively Hylden.

"There are any?"

"Surprisingly, there are. I sent them here." Kain turned his head up to the sky and closed his eyes, his expression becoming far distant once more. Some Vampires could sense the presence of others, even over great distances. With a frown Kain then turned to face the north, towards a sharper and blacker set of mountain peaks which rose high above the dry lake and joined with the spine of mountains forming Nosgoth's northern backbone. When his eyes opened again his face split into an almost evil grin.

"And how appropriate that they should have taken refuge in my own sanctuary." With that, he reached out and took hold of each of them by the arm. The translocation spell flowed up swiftly around them, stepping the three of them across a great distance quickly. When he had been a Vampire Raziel had known the spell, but his current form was unable to perform the arcane technique, even if he knew how the process was done. Kain's translocations were a little rudimentary. He preferred to travel such great distances by transforming himself into clouds of bats, but he could not do so with company.

As the world came back into sharp focus, Raziel looked around at their new location to reorient himself. His feet sank into gravel for perhaps an inch as he found himself staring out along the side of a mighty cliff. The dried lakebed they had been standing beside a few moments ago was now down far below, nearly lost in the gloom. Looming up before him, a part of the mountain itself was a spectacle that immediately drew his eye.

A mighty set of doors barred entrance to an imposing fortress, the symbol of Kain's empire engraved into its surface. On either side of the door stood two statues of Kain, each one perhaps fifty feet high and made of weathered stone. Each statue grasped a replica of the Reaver Blade in its hands and the depictions stood there imperiously glaring out towards the horizon to the east. Raziel knew this place instantly.

-0-

_**"Kain's Mountain sanctuary, a private retreat reserved for the Emperor alone. While Kain's seat of power had been at the base of the Pillars, this was his fortress, his unassailable domain where he sat above the petty concerns of the Clans and the utterly inconsequential scuttling of Humans. During Kain's rule of Nosgoth his sanctuary had been garrisoned by a select group of Vampires loyal directly to him and beyond the faction call of the Clans and strangely it appeared to be still."**_

-0-

Fresh banners depicting Kain's symbol hung from the battlements of a fortress which by all logic ought to have been abandoned for centuries. At the sight of such banners Kain's smile widened almost cockily and he began forward towards the closed gates. Umah started after him at once. Raziel watched them for a moment before he too followed. Confusion was clear on his ravaged blue face. What manner of allies would they find here?

As Kain approached the massive gates, a voice from the battlements high above called out in challenge; "Who approaches?" Kain came to a stop, glaring up towards where the voice had come from and the unseen challenger.

"This is my castle!" He declared in a powerfully loud voice, tinged with anger. It carried far and echoed off the side of the cliff to give it a threatening resonance. "Now open this gate before I lose my patience!"

"Kain, what are you doing?!" Umah hissed at him from behind. Her own voice had a slight metallic edge to it. Kain chuckled, keeping his eyes on the fortress.

"Asserting my authority." He replied. "I have grown skilled at that over the years."

There was a startled, even shocked silence. Then the gates began to open, hidden but loud gears turning in order to move the massive barrier aside. The ground rumbled and shook slightly at the vibration. As the doors swung open, over a dozen blue figures with black wings came racing out. Raziel recognized them immediately. He had met these particular Ancients before. They had helped him rescue Janos Audron by distracting the Hylden in an assault on Avernus. They were the Serioli, the original Vampires who founded the legendary order. Kain had journeyed back in time to learn the truth about the prophecy regarding the Scion of Balance and then had brought them forward to this time. Absently and with some amusement Raziel saw that many of them had taken to wearing drapes across their shoulders or arms bearing Kain's symbol.

"Lord Kain!" Their leader proclaimed. He was taller with wider shoulders than the others. Raziel recognized him as Ansu, the second-in-command under the Serioli Grandmaster. Stunned awe and relief were clear in his expression as he approached. "You're alive!" The other Serioli dropped down to one knee before the new arrivals, bowing low.

"All hail Lord Kain, the Scion of Balance!" They proclaimed in loud unison, their right hands clenched over their hearts as they announced their fealty. Kain glanced over the representatives of his army and then back to Ansu, who had not knelt like the others but rather bowed deeply at the waist.

"Where is Ajatar-Cadre? I would speak with her at once." He said. Ansu leaned back up and gestured back towards the Fortress' open gates.

"This way, my lord. I will take you to the Grandmaster immediately." He turned and led them back into Kain's stronghold, the Serioli moving up on either side as an escort. Raziel kept silent, merely following behind. So far none of them had given him a second look, all their attention focused on Kain's return rather than his own. To the Serioli Kain was the important one, the one to whom all attention must be diverted, not some blue skeleton who proved mildly useful at times. Few of them had even bothered to look Umah over.

Raziel glanced at her himself. While her body was made up of animate metal and there was no expression to read, her body language told him much. The way her shoulders were hunched and her chin lowered spoke louder than any words of a deep inner and unspoken anxiety. It was an anxiety he recognized.

"It doesn't make you less." He said to her in a quiet voice. Sharply the helmet that was her head turned to look at him. "Being bound and forced to inhabit a vessel not of your own choosing. I thought it did once." Grimly he gestured down at his own ruined body. "I'd be lying if I said I was satisfied with this form. But it doesn't define you."

"Then what does define you?" She asked of him in an equally soft voice, her tone very intent and he knew then he had indeed seen the core of her difficulties.

"I spent thousands of years trapped within the Reaver." He began in as detached a voice as he could manage, fighting to keep the fleeting but still powerful memories from rising. "I was certain madness was my inescapable destiny, to be dragged down to less than nothing in a cyclic role I was doomed to play out forever. But I endured, my soul and mind remained intact. I earned my freedom because I had the strength to survive." Warmly he reflected on that part of his essence where Ariel's soul was fused to his own. "And I had that strength because I had someone's hand to hold. That is what defines it, what keeps us who we are at the core. Who we choose to make those bonds with. Whose hands we choose to hold."

Umah paused as if she were considering his words but then turned away to look back at Kain and her troubled posture remained.

Ansu led them through the mountain sanctuary. Raziel saw that despite the passing centuries and various small improvements the Serioli had made during their occupancy, the fortress had changed very little. Finally they were escorted into the audience chamber where Kain had once held meetings with the Clan lieutenants when he summoned them here. None of them were supposed to know but Raziel was well aware that behind Kain's seat at that table was a secret entrance that led to his own private armoury.

Ajatar-Cadre, Grandmaster of the Serioli and accomplished wielder of elemental lore was stood at the table looking down at a parchment map spread across it. She wore a red toga with gold trim, silver bracers across her forearms and a pair of double bladed short swords tucked into her belt. There were several other figures in the chamber with her but Raziel did not get time to see them as Ajatar turned around to regard those entering the room. When she saw Kain her wings snapped wide in alarm, blocking Raziel's view of those others in the chamber. Her feathers rustled as was her habit when she was agitated or alarmed.

"Lord Kain, thank the fates you live!" She proclaimed in a grateful voice, coming forward at once to greet her liege lord. She was just as Raziel remembered her, although seeing her so subservient towards Kain was somehow less than pleasing. "When you did not follow us through the vortex we feared the worst."

Kain grunted, his face making a disgusted sneer for the reminder. "I was delayed." He replied in a flat tone. A low, rumbling chuckle came from the far side of the room. A familiar figure stood there. A tall man with enlarged ears and bright yellow eyes. His skin was dark green and short spikes jutted from his prominent cheekbones and chin.

It had been some time since Raziel had seen Vorador either, but there was a change in the elder Vampire. Physically he looked the same as always, wearing a by now antique red doublet with blue hose. The only visible difference was the weapons he now carried. Two identical silver bladed axes, strapped across his back, and a serpentine blade very much like the Reaver in shape at his side.

There was something, though, about the way he stood, how he carried himself, the energy and spirit in his eyes that Raziel sensed had changed him a great deal. Exactly what that was, he could not say, but it was worth keeping his eye on Vorador to see.

"One can never depend on you being where and when you are supposed to." Vorador was saying, his arms folded over his chest in a calculatedly supercilious manner. "Quite the reverse." Kain turned to look squarely at him, his face deliberately neutral.

"Vorador." He said in greeting in a purposely quiet voice.

"Kain." Vorador returned the gesture. Their eyes were locked on each other and there was a tension in the air that everyone sensed.

"I thought I banished you." Kain stated, slowly raising one eyebrow.

"You did." Vorador confirmed, mirroring the expression on his own face as if mocking the younger Vampire.

"I never retracted that order so your being here violates the terms of that banishment." The Emperor of Nosgoth remarked dryly. Vorador's returning look was decidedly unfriendly.

"You might be surprised, Kain, how little I care anymore about laws you might see to pass." He said with scorn. "I am still firmly of the opinion I ought to have killed you the moment you stepped into my domain, seeking the means to destroy Malek." Kain grinned in response to that, his fangs protruding over his bottom lip.

"Perhaps you should have. But you didn't." He reminded him. Then his eyes glinted in amused malice. Raziel recognized that look. It was the look Kain had when he was engaged with an enemy and he knew he had the upper hand. It was a look most of his brethren had been careful to watch for because it usually meant their emperor was on to their various little schemes for power against one another and he would enforce regulations to ensure they would not go too far. "Actually, Vorador, I'm glad to find you here. Serendipitous indeed."

Vorador squinted at Kain with a highly suspicious look as the lord of this fortress stepped to one side, gesturing back at those with him. "I have someone who will want to see you."

"Kain, if this is some perverse joke..." He began but then Umah started forward, the metal heels of her new body clinking on the stone floor. Without pausing she walked right up to the table and looked at the now puzzled elder Vampire head-on.

"No joke - he who was my father." She said strongly, almost defiantly. Raziel had to admire her brazenness if nothing else. It was her voice more than the look of the body Vorador recognized, that was obvious or he would have picked her out the moment she entered the room. His face turned pale, giving him an almost mint complexion and he stared at her in openmouthed disbelief. Raziel had never seen that kind of a reaction from Vorador before. It was refreshing to see a mood from him other than embittered disinterest.

"Umah?" His voice seemed to waver in uncertainty. That was certainly new from him as well in Raziel's experience. A cruel part of him was enjoying the spectacle. Ariel, on the other hand, was watching through his eyes with great interest, enthralled by the drama of it all.

"Yes. It is I." Umah said. She made no move to approach him nor to back away. She just stood there across the table from him, still and waiting. Vorador stared back with naked emotion passing across his face as it twisted back and forth from anger to surprise, relief, and shock. His hands were raised in front of him, talons spread almost defensively.

"How can this be?!" He asked, looking not at her but at Kain who had retreated off to one side to allow the situation to unfold without interference. Kain just shrugged one shoulder, resting both hands on the Reaver's pommel.

"Surely you were familiar with Malek's situation?" He asked rhetorically. Vorador's eyes widened even more at that reminder and his gaze snapped sharply back to Umah once more. There was hope in his eyes, a hope for what he had not dared imagine he might ever have again. But there was also fear, a fear of accepting something that might seem to be either too good to be true or a double-edged sword. Umah held up one hand.

"This body is only temporary. I've no intention of being trapped in this shell forever." She said and the metallic echo in her voice made her words seem all the more forceful. Vorador shut his eyes and laid both hands down on the table in front of him. He was silent for a long moment.

"My child." The words were said so quietly, so reverently that it was almost like a prayer. Umah kept herself rigid looking at him and Raziel just noticed then that the gauntlets that were her hands had been tightly clenched into fists. It was at that moment that he perceived his error from before. She had not been concerned about how she saw herself but rather how Vorador might, given their unique relationship. Raziel looked up to try and judge Vorador's mood. There had been no joyous reunion, of course, that would have been supremely out of character for the elder Vampire. Rather he seemed closed in, quiet and contemplative. It might be some time before any of them would know precisely how he would view his adopted daughter's return.

"Did you do this, Kain?" Vorador asked, looking up once more. Kain's lip twisted into an ironic smile at that.

"Partly." He admitted. "But I am certain you will enjoy her explaining it to you more than you would to have me do it." Vorador's expression was flat and unfriendly, anger clear in his eyes although not directed at anyone present.

"The Seer promised me that she would restore Umah to life if I aided her." He said in disgust. Kain rolled his eyes at that, leaning back against the wall, drumming his talons on the hilt of the Reaver Blade.

"Ah, yes. The Seer." There was a wealth of scorn in his voice as he was reminded of the Hylden woman. Given when last he had seen her she had betrayed him to Raziel-Divus, his anger was more than understandable. "She and I definitely need to have words."

"Not before I do." Vorador added blackly. "But I am sure we can work something out."


	3. Guardians

The two elder Vampires regarded each other coldly from across the room, all else for the moment seemingly forgotten. Raziel and Umah stood off to one side, watching and feeling the tenseness in the air slowly increase. Behind them at the doorway leading into the chamber, the Serioli had gathered in some numbers. Ajatar Cadre stood ready, her eyes flicking back and forth between them as if wondering who she would have to retrain first.

Kain's expression was flat and neutral, a deceptive pose for a faint flicker of amusement played about his eyes. Vorador's face was without deception for he wore his dislike and annoyance quite openly. His lips pulled down either side of his mouth into a glower. The silence lengthened to an almost unbearable degree.

"This is certainly not the first time we have been forced together against a common enemy." Kain finally said, breaking that silence jovially. Vorador's ears flicked up to complete erectness in response.

"Perhaps so." He replied, his gaze unblinkingly kept on Kain's face. "But this will not end the same way, Kain. There will be no exile, no lorded dominion and no betrayed trusts this time." His tone made it quite clear this was no request but a statement of pure fact, as if he were dictating policy and would brook no opposition to it, not even from Kain.

"This time we fight for something more than our survival." Vorador moved forward and placed both hands on the table, his talons clawing one edge of the large parchment map spread across it. His gaze was direct and flickered for a single moment to Raziel and then back to Kain. "This time we fight for our very futures and the future of the world we inhabit. We fight to shape our destines how we see fit, not how others would have them."

At that profound statement Kain's amused, cocky expression wilted at the corners and his eyes narrowed intently.

"Then you know something of my intentions already?" He asked and all joviality was gone from his speech. He was all stern seriousness.

"I have been given certain...illumination." Vorador replied somewhat cryptically.

Kain's eyes narrowed still further and his smile faded completely. "Would you care to share that illumination?" He asked. Now it was Vorador's turn to smile

"No I would not. Not with you." He strengthened back up and tucked his arms behind him in the small of his back in his characteristic stance. "Not yet."

Kain maintained eye contact with Vorador for another long moment. Vorador returned the gaze. The two of them stood in silence again as if each was testing the others resolve. Just standing off to one side, Raziel found the entire affair privately amusing.

Finally Kain turned his head to regard the only other figure in the room he had not yet addressed. The confrontation between the two ancient vampires had diverted so much attention that none had even looked in her direction before, including Raziel. When he followed Kain's gaze to see himself, he had a moments confused shock.

Sitting in one of the chairs off to one side, slightly behind Ajatar was a figure that was neither Human nor Vampire. She was slender almost emaciated, with long arms crossed before her on the table. Her hair was a dark brown and smooth out from behind an elaborate crest. Her eyes were pale grey as if blind but her gaze was fixed firmly on them, unwavering in her intense scrutiny. What was even more startling however was the pair of wings that were sprouted from the edges of her wide shoulder blades. No feathered ravens wings like those of the Serioli around her but webbed like those of some colossal bat or ancient reptile. Raziel had seen those strange wings once before, on the arched and near crippled back of Marduk of the Hylden House of Knowledge. But the woman seated here was no cripple. Her spine seemed thickly muscled despite her slenderness to compensate for the additional limbs. Her loose clothes however did not hide hideously and recently healed scars that crisscrossed the skin where they sprouted.

"You are Hylden?" Kain asked in some concern before Raziel could say a word. The woman remained seated but her fingers did knit together a little tightly in front of her as she was finally addressed.

"Is that a problem?" She asked in return and her quiet tone did not hide a note of apprehension. Kain turned to face her completely, taking a moment to look her over with an appraising eye.

"That ultimately depends." He said. "I have my sights set on a far more dangerous enemy but I have not forgotten the danger your people have presented at times." She tensed in her seat a little and Raziel noticed that her gaze kept flicking from Kain's face to the Reaver that he held in his hands.

Unexpectedly Ajatar Cadre reached out and put a hand on the woman's shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

"There is a truce, Lord Kain." The leader of the Serioli said to him quickly without removing her hand from the woman. "The Hylden and the Vampires, at least those capable of rational thought, have agreed to a cease of hostilities."

One of Kain's eyebrows raised and he looked back and forth between them with a clearly perplexed expression

"After thousands of years of hatred, engrained madness and prejudice?" The incredulity in his voice was palpable. Vorador chuckled almost to himself.

"It was a difficult arrangement to bring about." He said with a grin. Kain grunted with a roll of his eyes.

"Undoubtedly."

"This is Tiamatu, new leader of the House of Knowledge." Ajatar said by way of introduction. The Hylden woman sat at the table inclined her head at them, but pause when she saw Raziel. He had been staring at her with a feirce intensity that caught her eyes and made her stop.

"Heir to Marduk, I assume?" He asked. She said nothing in reply. She didn't even nod. None of that was necessary. The wings upon her back were statement enough.

"Was it necessary to kill him?" Tiamatu's gaze was direct, showing no emotion as she asked the question. Raziel knew that was intentionally deceptive even without any prompt.

"It was his choice to fight. Not mine." He didn't soften his words or mannerisms and delivered the statement as bluntly as he could. If this protégée wanted vengeance she would have attacked him already. But he wanted her to feel that twinge of fear and doubt shoulder any embers of resentment flare up. He had the satisfaction of watching her flinch slightly at his efforts.

"Raziel, enough." Kain told him without turning around. Then he raised his voice, addressing everyone within earshot. All heads turned to look at him. "We are all at a crisis point. This is the calm before the storm. A storm that will either revitalise Nosgoth or destroy it once and for all; if our enemy has his way."

A low buzz of conversation began amongst the Serioli just inside and outside the room at this announcement. Ajatar, who still had her hand on Tiamatu's shoulder, frowned slightly.

"What enemy?" She asked. Kain turned to look at her. He took a moment to consider his words before going on. "What I am about to tell you will be difficult to comprehend, let alone believe. But it is the truth." He turned to address everyone once more. "For centuries...no eons, we have been betrayed and deceived. Kept in squalid ignorance and used like cattle."

The conversation died down as everyone went very quiet at his words.

"Beyond even the Hylden, this hidden enemy always has been the most devoted adversary of the Vampire race. It will stop at nothing until anything with the merest drop of Vampiric blood in it is destroyed and all life is subject to its whims and desires." Holding the Reaver in one hand he swept his arm around in what Raziel knew to be a deliberately theatrical gesture pointing to everyone in turn with the blades tip. Facing the crowd gathered there he set the blade down and rested his hands on the hilt.

"You already know this foe." Kain told them flatly as he stood there, sword in hand. "It was once known as the Oracle God of the Ancient Vampires."

A single moment of stunned silenced passed but when it did no discipline in the world could have prevented the sudden flood of startled words that shot down the corridor outside the door like an unleashed flood.

Off to one side, Vorador stood with his frown deepening but he did not look surprised. Ajatar on the other hand looked utterly taken aback. Her eyes were bulging wide and her wings behind her rustled in agitation so much it looked like she was shivering. In the seat beside her, Tiamatu had an only slightly less baffled look on her face. Her own wings had come out of their tight bundle in response, draping down to the floor.

Raziel swept the room with his eyes, watching reactions play across face after face. It was certainly a big thing to claim even to opponents of the Wheel of Fate religion like the Serioli. Disbelief and confusion was the main thing to be read in the eyes of those here.

"What?" It was the only thing Ajatar managed to say right then and it came out in a strangled squeak. Kain kept his pose, only turning his head to look at her.

"Do you recall, when we gathered at the Pillars, you were beset by things you could not see?" He asked her. Ajatar took a moment to collect herself, looking this way and that as she scrambled for the memory.

"Yes...but when you gave us the gift of spirit we saw these ... vile tentacles that emerged from the ground." Kain nodded once.

"Those tentacles were the appendages of that entity." He said. "It is referred to as 'The Elder.' It is an ancient creature that came to Nosgoth in its primeval past to feed on the abundance of life here. Its proposed 'Wheel of Fate' is little more than its means of controlling its food supply, like a fisherman casting out his line over and over."

Another loud wave of baffled and startled words moved through the crowd of Serioli, moving down the corridor. Kain ignored it.

"The Divus will begin their plans soon. I fear their 'promised day' is not far off. We must be prepared for the onslaught." He said grimly. Vorador rubbed the end of his chin with one talon thoughtfully.

"Not knowing the exact details of their assault or the form it will take makes such preparation difficult." He mused. Ajatar looked at him in surprise.

"You believe the threat exists?"

"Of late I have seen enough to convince me so, yes."

"They were preparing weapons and armour in the forge of Fanum-Divus when I was there." Raziel said, folding his arms across his chest and earning himself a startled look from quite a few of the Serioli stood nearby.

"So we can assume then that their assault will come in the form of armies?" Vorador asked.

"In part, yes." Kain replied.

"I can scarce believe what you tell me. You say our enemy is God himself?" Ajatar lifted one hand to her head as if she could not quite take in this information, as if assimilating it were beyond her capabilities. Raziel shook his head sharply at that.

"He is a pretender, a cancerous parasitic being who's only claim to divinity is his grandiose melodramatic voice." He said with a great deal of scorn. "He is no God."

Throughout the entire meet and even Kain's revelations, Ansu stood silent and contemplative.

"Perhaps it might be prudent to expand on the ceasefire with the Hylden and form an alliance." He said, speaking for the first time, looking at Tiamatu. "And with the Humans if they could be made to see the advantages." Kain let out a snort of derisive laughter.

"I somehow doubt Mankind would willingly consent to side with me on any issue." He proclaimed in amusement.

"You've only yourself to blame for that, Kain." Vorador reminded him flatly. Tiamatu looked between them all for a moment then sighed.

"My people may have agreed to a cease fire but that is not the same as setting our differences aside." She said, leaning down to rest her chin on her knitted fingers. "Hatred for Vampires runs deep with us. Many of us were alive during that ancient war and saw with their own eyes the injustices done. I doubt they would entertain the idea of an alliance of any kind."

Ajatar looked down at her and the ripple of guilt passed clearly over her face. Raziel watched her struggled with herself for a long moment, before eventually as if compelled she said;

"They might. Perhaps in exchange for something they might."

Tiamatu looked up at her in perplexity.

"Such as what?" She asked, baffled. When Ajatar did not meet her gaze, she seemed to realise what was implied and the bitter resentment was so naked on her face as to approach actual anger. "You mean to use my discovery...the legacy of the Marduk, as a political bargaining chip?!" Ajatar turned her head away completely and her wings were tight against her body.

"The Divus were the ones who provoked the Vampires into their holy war on your people. Ultimately they were responsible." Vorador stated, interjecting for the sake of his old mentor and diverting Tiamatu's angry attention. "It will not just be the Vampires they will destroy when they come. They will destroy anything which does not bow in abject surrender before their God. A God your people rejected in antiquity." The ancient vampire held the Hylden woman's rage filled gaze quite calmly. "I fear none of us will survive whatever their endgame will be if we stand alone and divided."

"This talk is moot." Kain said sharply, overriding the debate. "Our alliances, whichever we choose to forge, will mean nothing unless we possess a means of countering that endgame." He turned then to look at Umah, who started a little at being sought but then her hand went to the helmet hooked at her waist. Like the helmet of her own animated body, it had originally been the helm of a Sarafan armour piece. But once possessed by a spirit the metal had become warped to best resemble the facial features of that possessing entity. Battered and dented as it was, she had safely brought it with her across a temporal leap of thousands of years.

"Ashar?"

"Yes. Whatever instructions he received from Ba'al Zebur must have contained some means of victory or at the very least defending ourselves." Kain said with some concern. Raziel shared it for if what he had been told about the events that had taken place at Malek's bastion before he had arrived were true then the spirit of the Hylden king, sealed within this helmet, could be a monumental clue to how to overcome their enemies.

"You're not basing that on very solid evidence, Kain." He was compelled to say 'anything'. Kain grunted in response.

"I know, but what else do we have? Whatever the cost we must find a means of restoring Ashar's mind. Currently the only hope for Nosgoth..." He pointed one talon down at that helmet, dark and lifeless as if it were little more then an ornament. "...lies catatonic and inert, locked in steel."

-0-

**"Before such an undertaking could be embarked upon, there was something else of vital importance which needed to be addressed. This confrontation would not involve me but it would be momentous all the same. I was not looking forward to it."**

-0-

Kain stood in the rooms had once, eons ago, had served as his own private bed chambers. By now he had taken the opportunity to replace some of his attire, damaged or lost over the chaotic events which head led him here. He once more tied back in hair into the wide pony tail he preferred, held back by a golden ring. Across his chest was replacement leather strap. From this strap on his left shoulder once more hung the reaver. From his left hung a crisp replacement red drape, dyed white with the jagged emblem of his imperial icon.

Standing with his arms crossed across his chest he beheld the large jagged hole where once there had been an excellently and exquisitely detailed stained glass mural window of one of his greatest victories, the defeat of the Sarafan lord. Now however all that remained of it were a few pieces of jagged glass around the frame. Exactly what had caused its destruction wasn't clear, but the rest of the room showed signs of some form of struggle taking place. Dark stains across the floor told of recently spilled blood.

Slowly the emperor of Nosgoth surveyed the damage, a frown creasing his face. He drew in a deep breath through his nose and let it out in an annoyed grunt.

"I liked that window." He said as if speaking to himself.

"I always found it pompous." Raziel replied flatly, stepping from the shadows of the room's doorway into pale light cast from outside. Kain blinked at this and half turned to look at wraith with a raised eyebrow.

"That's not what you said when I had it commissioned." Raziel just shrugged as he approached.

"I was your obedient, subservient subordinate then." He said. An amused smile crossed Kain's face.

"I would never have thought you to be a 'yes man', Raziel. Under any circumstances." Coming up beside him, Raziel gave the Vampire a sidelong look.

"You were Emperor of Nosgoth, lord of all you surveyed, the strongest and most powerful, you wielded the Reaver against which there was no defence and you were God to all Vampires. We were ALL 'yes men.' "

At that Kain tilted his head back and let out a deep gut laugh, placing his hands on either side of his hips as his laughter echoed around the room. Raziel's face did not smile anymore, he didn't have the muscles or joints for it, but the loosening of tension around his eyes showed clearly he shared Kain's mirth at their little joke.

"Is there any special reason for this conversation or are you merely here to be contentious?" Kain asked, still chuckling.

Raziel was silent for a long moment after that. He didn't look at Kain, merely kept his gaze staring off towards the distant horizon. It had finally come, the confrontation he knew had to happen. A confrontation that did not involve him but due to circumstances beyond his control still required his presence.

"I have rarely wanted to speak with you Kain and that's hardly changed despite our alliance." He began, taking a few steps to the side to give what was about to happen some room. "But there is someone else who does."

Kain barely had time to fully turn around with a puzzled look on his face before it began. She came in a flash, a rippling of light and mist, her graceful but insubstantial form erupting like the spray of a wave against a jagged shore. Ariel's ghostly form flowed out, her long blond hair swaying in ethereal spirit winds and her face dark with corruption. Her one eye, cold as ice, locked onto Kain's startled face.

The Vampire took a step backwards, confusion and bewilderment clear on his face as he beheld one he had only ever known as entrapped to haunt the Pillars for all eternity. Ariel's expression, Raziel could see, was very a stern challenging frown. It was a far cry from the defeated, despairing ghost he had first met so long ago when he had first confronted Kain upon his revival. Now she was full of strength and vitality, the handicap of being dead not withstanding.

Finally it had come, the bitter, resentful meeting of two generations of balance guardians. Each blaming the other for its lamentable fate, a destiny not of their choosing.

"Clearly the rules have changed." Kain began in a slow voice, brows furrowed in grim perplexity.

"After eons of stagnant and static existence, any change is preferable." Ariel's answering tone was like cold iron and her gaze never left him for a moment. Recovering somewhat, Kain straightened as his usual defiant pride reasserted itself.

"I can imagine." He said and cleared his throat. "So, to what do I owe this admittedly unexpected pleasure, Ariel? Or have you freed yourself from the pillars only to cast your despite in my teeth?"

Raziel had backed off to the side of the wall, giving them as much room as possible. But the ghost and the Vampires had their attention fixed solely on the other right now. He might was well have not been there. Which right now he fervently wished he was not. It was profoundly awkward.

"As I said, any change is preferable. I fail to see what it would accomplish in reminding you of what your failure to accept the sacrifice has brought to the world." Ariel replied and her malicious almost spitefully sarcastic words caused Kain to bare his fangs in a disgusted frown.

"We are both keenly aware of that." He said angrily.

"And all it took was over a thousand years for you to grasp your folly?" She scoffed.

"And all it took was the same for you to realise we have never really been enemies?" Kain shot back with some heat. "That is, of course, why this conversation is happening in the first place, is it not?"

His returning gaze was very direct and the anger in it actually made her flinch. It was a powerful anger, a coiled up bitter ball of resentment so intense that even Raziel who was not directly involved in this conversation marvelled at it. He had seen Kain angry before. But this was not like any sort of boiling rage. Rather this was icy cold, a towering glacier of resentment created over centuries.

"You lied to me Ariel. You kept my destiny and role as your successor from me, sent me as an assassin to hunt down and slay each member of the circle knowing full well ahead of time that the completion of that cleansing would require my own death." He raised and jabbed an accusatory talon at her. "You even sent me to the Oracle. There was no way you could not have known Moebius' alter ego and yet you sent me to that manipulator without any warning of his deviousness. What made it even more stunning spectacular is that after all of that you expected me to concede to the sacrifice gracefully. You were an utter fool."

This was no more then Ariel herself had expressed to Raziel privately so he knew that she felt the same way. She floated backwards from coldly furious Vampire and Raziel could see, now that her face was regaining its pristine perfection, that her expression was one of guilty admittance. She may have desired this meeting to bare all this to the surface but that did not make the reality of it any less difficult and taxing.

"All balance guardians have born in them a strong sense of duty. I had relied on that to prompt you into doing the right thing." She replied but her tone was less stern. "I didn't expect you to twist that instinct into conquering imperial avarice." At that, Kain actually smirked.

"It was for the best." He said and Ariel stared at him in consternated awe.

"You still believe that?" She was aghast.

"Of course I do. Vampires are the superior species and for the good of Nosgoth they must take their rightful place as wardens of the world." He thumped one closed fist to his chest for emphasis.

"And what of Man?" She asked, frowning.

"Mankind is a foolish race, easily swayed and weak willed. Perhaps with education he might be improved..." His teasing sardonic reply caused her to turn her face with a grunt of disgust.

"You have not changed." She said. Kain placed his hands back on his hips and cocked his head to one side as he looked at her.

"You don't really think that, or you wouldn't be here." He guessed shrewdly. Ariel's face darkened into its skull like corruption once more.

"I am here because, whether it pleased me or not, we find ourselves on the same side in the only fight that has any meaning." She replied. "The Divus care nothing for Nosgoth. They would see it destroyed and cast aside. You at the very least want to preserve our world."

Kain's answering expression was almost perverse, a twisted smile of smug superiority. It was if he relished being the one in control over her, to avenge his own manipulation at her hands however regretted it might be.

"Preserve?" He repeated. "Oh I want much more than that. I will not settle for simply existing. I will see the Pillars standing tall and immaculate once more. The land as vibrant and rich as it once was. The Circle of Nine restored. The agony which we have all endured brought to an end."

His words rang with such determination and conviction that both Raziel and Ariel watched him wide eyes.

"Then and ONLY then, will I call myself satisfied."

The spirit of the former Balance Guardian hovered there in silence for a long drawn out moment, lips pursed as Kain's words slowly seemed to sink in. Raziel was watching her face. It had been dark with her corrupted side, but slowly that gave way to the perfection of her whole face. Her fully restored expression reflected a wide range of mixed emotions. There was anger there still, but grudging respect as well, tinged around the edges which what could be the flickering embers of a distant hope.

"No, indeed you haven't changed. You're just as ambitious as you always were." She said then and that same mixture of emotions was evident in her voice. "We are in accord. We end this suffering."

Raziel had never seen her so suddenly filled with much forceful drive before. It was as if some of Kain's ambition had proved infectious. Kain's vulpine grin seemed all the more triumphant because of this.

"Agreed."


	4. Spire

Beyond the mountains into which Dumah had carved his fortress and from which he had directed the expanding influence of his clan before being struck down by mankind's unlikely assault; there lay a near perfectly circular valley. Nestled north, west and east by towering mountain cliffs the only way in or out was a narrow dusty trail to the south lined with thick jagged boulders. The ground of that valley was black, rich with ash and choked with thick weeds doing their best to survive on the nutrients left buried beneath the dust. These weeds grew as large as bushes and had long since swallowed up any road or path that might once have existed.

It was a dark lonely place of long near permanent shadows cast by the rocks and towering mountains, a patchwork of greys, blacks, dull reds and pale yellows. The wind whistling down through that narrow pass and into the valley was swift and bone chilling, blowing a near continuous dust cloud that acted almost like a hazy concealing barrier to anyone who might wish to intrude on the bleak solitude of this hidden place.

Slowly Raziel turned his head to take it all in, his eyes narrow speculatively. Outside the valley it was very cold, especially this far north. But just beyond the wind from the pass it was relatively warm, as if the thick cliff walls capture and retained some heat.

The silent ambience of the place disturbed him though but he could not say why. While Nosgoth was in no fit state to compare, this isolated valley seemed just a little too still, just that bit too quiet. It seemed un-natural, fake, deceptive.

He looked down at the ground beneath his feet. Near black with the ash in it. Hardly surprising, as looking above the mountains to the north was the blooming peak of a volcano, the largest known volcano on the face of Nosgoth. He scraped the top layer of dirt aside with his heal and sure enough he found a patchy grey igneous rock beneath. Once, a long time ago, this place had been the scene of a tremendous lava flow.

-0-

**"While Kain sought to delay if not prevent the inevitable assault, I found myself tasked with discovering whatever means I could at restoring the mind of the Hylden King. After so long, to be taking direction from Kain as if I were under his command once more was disconcerting. It did not feel as if I had come home but rather that I had lost some vital independence. But I cast such juvenile thoughts aside. What we did here was vital and if I was to see the overthrow of my 'master' then I would have to do my part."**

-0-

"Here?" He asked sceptically, half turning to look back over one shoulder at one of his companions as she stepped forward.

Coming up beside him, Ajatar-Cadre took her turn to glance up and down the valley. Her golden eyes settled towards the north and the peak of the distant volcano there. She frowned at it, eyebrows furrowing and her feathered wings making their tell tale rustle of discontent and irritation.

"The lay of the land has changed much over the centuries but yes, here." She confirmed, raising one hand and gesturing out. "It was in these mountains that the very first Serioli developed the arts of elemental manipulation and forging, long before the Wheel of Faith religion took root." Her tone as she spoke was distantly romantic, as if she spoke of personally pleasing myths and legends. "The last grandmaster of the order before me resided here. I have not yet achieved what I knew him capable of."

Raziel grunted, placing one hand on his bony hip as he followed her gaze to various points across the mountainsides that ringed the valley. He personally saw no sign or evidence of ancient Vampire ruins but if there were it was possible such things had long been buried by debris over the eons.

The clanking, clicking footsteps of another of his companions was muffled by the thick dusty ground around them as she stepped down past them, pausing at the edges of a seemingly impassable line of bush high weeds. Umah's animated armour body was highly conspicuous as it gave off a faint violet glow from within, causing shadows around her to gently lessen.

"What makes you certain there exists a means to restore Ashar here?" She asked in her faintly echoing voice, half turning. At her side, attached to her hip, Ashar's helmet gently swayed on the hook of a belt. It was still lifeless, inert, a piece of cold steel. Ajatar took a few steps down to the edge of the weeds herself, drawing one of the pair pronged short swords she wore at her side.

"Both you and he are souls bonded to armour." She explained. "Ukko, my mentor and predecessor, was adept at such craft. He pioneered the first forging of spirit as an element amongst the Serioli. If there exists a means of rejuvenating Ashar then it is here, where he practised his art." Then she took her sword to the weeds to hack a path clear down through the valley with Umah close behind her.

Raziel stood watching them as they began their trek, pondering Ajatar's words silently to himself. If she was not exaggerating then this Ukko she spoke of could very well be the builder or at least the architect of the various elemental shrines he had encountered in his travels. Perhaps especially the Spirit Forge, located deep in the maze like bowels of the Ancient Vampire citadel. A smith and grafter of such power and skill could indeed have the means to restore the spirit of the Hylden king to its full strength.

But, he was quick to remind him, that did not mean that such information was buried somewhere here for them to find. Thousands of years had passed since the height of the Serioli Order and the ancient devastating wars. If Ukko had left anything behind, it was more then likely that by now it had degraded past usefulness.

There was however only one way to be sure and while Kain prepared his strategy and galvanised whatever forces he could for the final battle, this task had been left to them and it was one they had to carry out as swiftly as possible. Not knowing how long they had before the assault and the 'promised day' meant that potentially every passing moment could be their last.

The tapping of nails on rock caused him to turn again and he beheld his final companion. Hylden were a strange species to behold, even in their restored state. Their anatomy was so similar to other species and yet so radically different. This one, with her wings laying across her back and trailing down to the backs of her multi-jointed legs was one of the more extraordinary examples of that.

Having Tiamatu here was decidedly awkward.

"I would have thought you would return to your own kind." He said. He didn't mean to sound surly or belligerent but that was how it sounded when he spoke. However the new leader of the Hylden House of Knowledge either didn't notice or pretended not to. Her arms were folded across her belly and her gaze was kept locked onto the two others making their way down the valley.

"My people, even my own house, do not require my presence." She replied quietly, her pale eyes narrowed. "And what you do here aroused my curiosity."

He knew she was lying. Everything about her tone and body language revealed that to him instantly, along with the fact that she was looking not so much at the others but rather at Ajatar specifically. The expression on her face was a strange one but the dominant emotion there was resentment.

"You do not wish to reveal your achievement to them do you?" Raziel guessed and was rewarded for it by seeing her wings twitch and then curl tighter against her back, being able to fold up in a way no feathered Vampire wing ever could. Her expression darkened, eyebrows furrowing as she gave him a sharp almost angry sidelong look. He returned her gaze steadily before she finally looked away again.

"Not yet." She admitted and her eyes were once more only for Ajatar. "I need to ponder the consequences."

He had been told more or less the events which had transpired here after he had journeyed to find Kain in the depths of Fanum-Divus. The cease fire with the Hylden. The healing of Janos' mind. Her perfecting of Marduk's technique in developing the potential for powered flight in her people. However it had been after the fact, second hand accounts. From the way Tiamatu looked bitterly after Ajatar, as if hurt and betrayed, Raziel supposed more had happened on an emotional level then many really knew.

Progressing further north and deeper into the valley proved tough going as the further they went the thicker and more persistent the unhealthy vegetation proved to be. Raziel could not help but feel like they had stepped into a place where the corruption that pervaded Nosgoth had been set aside for a far more urgent and repugnant evil. But he could name nothing solid he had seen or heard that was the source of that impression. It was just something he felt with every step he made, as if he could sense it in the very ground upon which he walked.

Occasionally either Ajatar or Tiamatu took to the air to scout the valley from the birds eye view, but never together he was quick to notice. They each waited until the other had landed before either of them took off to fly on ahead. From the way Umah watched them fly it was clear he had not been the only one to notice the peculiarity either.

It was not long before their party came across ruins, crumbling dark spires of stonework that breached the weeds like whales coming up for air. But closer inspection revealed them not to be of Ancient Vampire origin nor even of Hylden. In fact, the source of this architecture baffled Raziel at first. The dark bricks seemed not to be held together with mortar or any adhesive whatsoever, as if they clung to one another by some other force. Chipping away with one talon he carved a piece off and as soon as he did, the fragment crumbled into a fine sooty dust in his hand.

"No." Ajatar said as if reading his thoughts, watching over his shoulder with a perplexed look on her face. "This is not the result of elemental forging." She straightened up and placed one hand against the stone, talons spread wide. Her face took one a distant expression of concentration before she jerked her hand away with a grunt of disgust.

"Magic." She concluded immediately. "Dark magic, placed here in far more recent centuries. It reeks of disease and death!"

That began a memory to stir in the depths of Raziel's mind. Something he had heard once, a tale told to me a very long time ago. His eyes narrowing, the wraith stood up and dusted his hands off. He looked once more up at the pillar of black stone before him, then further off down the valley.

"I will go on ahead." He said after a moment of contemplation. "You and the others should find a safe place and wait for me." The Ancient Vampire gave him a quick look.

"You know something?" She guessed.

"I suspect something." He corrected her. "I want to confirm it before we blunder in any further." She nodded at that and snapped her wings out.

"Just do not take too long." She said before launching herself into the air.

Loosening his grip on the matter that made up his physical body, Raziel passed back enveloping darkness of the spectral realm. The world warped around him, becoming twisted as if seen through a corrupted lens. The dark spire before him curved around, becoming a spiral rising up towards the sky like some colossal snake and like this its outline seemed all the more threatening.

The weeds proved no impediment to him in this reality. They were insubstantial, ghostly images barely on the edge of his vision and he passed right through them. Without them to slow his pace he made good time, travelling further down into the centre of the valley. If this was indeed what he thought, then the eye of it lay there.

The land before him seemed even more evil and sinister here, as if seen through the lens of the spectral realm its latent evil was brought forth to be almost visible. Grimly he pressed on quickening his pace as the sense of dread increased. It became so palpable it felt very much like he was being watched from all directions at once by an entity with malevolent intent.

An earthquake must have occurred sometime in the past for soon Raziel came to the bottom of a large wall that seemed to stretch across most if not all of the valleys width. Here the land rose a good twenty feet into the air in a sheer vertical cliff. Once more the gift of Zephon's soul proved invaluable as he scaled that obstacle, sticking to the wall even in the spectral realm's looser grasp of physical law.

It did not take him long to pull himself up over the edge and even as he straightened, from this vantage point he could see it. A tower of stone in the distance, as black as the monolith he had left behind but many times larger to be seen from this distance. It was like the blade of a dagger thrust up from the earth to jab at the sky. The sight of it made him pause to simply stare.

All the feelings of evil and malevolence he had felt since entering this valley seemed focused on that spire or rather that it felt like that was its source, the font from which it spewed. This was just as he suspected and fit in well with what he remembered being told of this place. He needed to get closer to confirm of course, but this did not bode well.

The scavengers must have had slim pickings here in this isolated place for when they attacked him, their ambush was swift and savage. Three of them came scrambling like wild dogs out from the dark shadows of a concealing patch of rocks to his left, another four to his right to try and catch him from behind. Two leapt at him before he even had time to react, slamming their pulpy green bodies into his to knock him back. He felt their claws rake him savagely, slicing deep into him and causing the life blood that was the spiritual energy he relied on to leak out.

Sluagh were near mindless vermin, scavengers which preyed on the lost souls which had managed to escape the vortex that was the Wheel of Fate. There were opportunistic hunters at best and their cooperative packs were a poor reflection of the habits of the herds of living animals. Sophisticated strategy was not required however when you had the element of surprise on your side and the advantage of numbers.

Raziel frantically scrambled as they piled in on him, biting, clawing, gnashing, gnawing; many mouths and claws trying in a frenzy to carve off whatever they could. Above him was a blurred vision of dozens of bulging eyes and huge teeth, twisted like a parody of a crowd of hideous faces.

With a hideous shriek that split the air and a flash of light, the wraith blade erupted out with enough force to impale a hungry sluagh right through the mouth, the spiralling ghostly sword emerging out the back of its head in a spray of spiritual energy. Its twitching body writhed on the blade, struggling to free itself as its form turned transparent and insubstantial with the loss of so much of its energies.

As it fell backwards, the others of its pack fell on it at once, ravenous for any sort of nourishment. That momentary break was all Raziel needed. He kicked one squarely in the chest, knocking it away from him before he brought the wraith blade around in a sweeping arc. The sword cut three of them deeply, their energy leaking free.

Raziel did not give them a chance to regroup or flee. He was on them at once, the wraith blade dancing through the air high and low. Bringing it down he carved their feet out from under them. Swinging it high knocked them back and carved their forms open to let their energy spill.

One by one he cut them down, hacking through them. He was less fighting then he was cleaving, smashing them down as he could were he using a scythe to cleave wheat. He whittled their pack down until every last one had been depleted of their energies, cast into depleted transparency and ripe for plucking.

Drawing down his cowl sharply down with his left hand, he drew them to him and one by one he consumed the entire pack, each of them scrabbling desperate to escape but to no avail. He was merciless in perusing and devouring them. He didn't need to do so in order to restore his energies and heal the wounds inflicted upon him. But their callous cowardly sneak attack had left him coldly enraged.

If any other life of the spectral realms brutal ecology had been watching the savage exchange then they had spread word of it as on his way down towards the spire Raziel encountered no more of them. Most hunters of this realm were cowardly opportunists who stalked their prey with ambushes, unwilling to risk anything in a prolonged chase. So strong a prey as he was not worth stalking for so little potential a meal and he hoped the display had made that crystal clear.

In the foothills just below the rising dark tower he sought there were more ruins, other monoliths like the first one he had discovered and large cone shaped buildings all spanning out in a rough circle from the tower. From the Spectral realm they were twisted and warped, evil looking things like a pit of writhing snakes and Raziel doubted they looked any better from the physical world. The sense of disease and pestilence was so strong here he could almost taste it.

As if in confirmation of that dark feeling, there was no shortage of potential vessels for him to re-enter the physical world. Ethereal gasses from entrapped and long buried corpses bubbled to the surface in many locations scattered across that hillside, many of them tightly buried together as if marking the location of a hidden mass grave. Raziel prudently selected one that was just out of sight of the spire before he projected his essence into it.

His new physical vessel clawed its way back up through the earth, its form changed and morphing to reflect the true visage of its new occupant. If Raziel could find a way to use the conduits that his master now denied him then it would be immensely preferable over this repugnant method, rising from the earth like some ghoul. With a disgusted grunt he shivered to dislodge centuries of ashy dirt that clung to his body.

Glancing up he now beheld the spire in the light of day from close up, a monstrous finger of dark stone with a covering of weeds running up one of its faces. Uncounted centuries had passed since this place had been revisited and it had been left to rot, reclaiming by nature but still as corrupting as ever. Raziel's eyes narrowed. His suspicion was confirmed. He did know this place.

-0**-**

**"Before me lay the shattered and broken ruin of Dark Eden, a place of horror to Humans and Vampires alike. In their madness; the demented circle members Bane, Dejoule and Anacrothe combined their powers to remake Nosgoth into a hideous parody of itself. From the spire their perverting energies had once formed an expanding dome that mutated any living thing it came into contact with. Even inert as it was, this place reeked of their diseased imagination."**

-0-

He paused to listen for any sound he might hear, then he began to trudge slowly up the hill towards that central spire. The top of it had tumbled free some time ago and by now all that remained was a stump, like a broken tooth. Once this place had been covered with rivers of lava and raining fire, at least to hear Kain speak of it, but now all was still.

-0-

**"That this place would be host to both this evil structure and the early Serioli of Ajatar's predecessor seemed too much of a piece to be mere coincidence."**

-0-

Raziel stopped and stared at a large cave mouth which opened, maw like, at the base of the ancient tower. It was no natural formation, but rather the front gate to the structure itself now encrusted with dirt and overgrowth. He could tell by the few patches of brickwork he could see peeking through from below. But what made him pause was not the sight of it but rather the smell coming out.

A Vampire's sense of smell was very acute and Raziel's had not suffered since his remoulding as a wraith. Each clan of Kain's empire had had their own unique smell. It helped to identify allies from potential enemies. The smell eminating from the cave was a pungent vampiric oder, once he recognised instantly; the unique smell of Turelim Vampires.

Briefly he wondered what to do next. Perhaps he ought return to the others and inform them of his discovery. But he dismissed that idea almost immediately. It would waste time and with the Divus' gambit soon to fall upon them time was a commodity in short supply. It was best he investigate as much as he could and dispense with any immediate dangers himself.

"Be wary, Raziel." Ariel's voice whispered intently into the depths of his mind, her tone strangle intense. "The evil of this place goes far beyound the machinations of the warped triad. I sensed it as they worked their madness. I know not what it is, but to bring it to life once more would be a serious mistake." Raziel's eyes narrowed at her warning but he pressed on regardless, moving up to the arching and ominously dark cave mouth. With the dark bricks jutting out of the ground all around it had the distinct look of a demons gaping wide open mouth.

The darkness beyond was almost total and the air was deathly still and had a mouldy quality to it, like a thick fungal growth. The faint sound of dripping water echoed from somewhere off in the darkness. Raziel's eyes could see in the dark far better then any humans but still he proceeded slowly, ears pricked for the slightest sound. He waited there for a moment, then flourished his right hand summoning the wraith blade once more.

The blue glow of its physical manifestation banished the shadows, illuminating a long tunnel of dark brick leading up a light of deep stairs. Each step was broken, crumbling and insubstantial to the point where the weight of Raziel's foot upon it caused them to collapse into fragments that tumbled down to the bottom. Raziel had to find whatever footing he could as he gradually made his way up and into the spires heart.

The smell of Turelim was strong here but not insistent. This suggested that while they had been in the vicinity very recently they had by now departed. But Raziel proceeded slowly regardless, the wraith blade held out at arms length before him to illuminate as munch of the darkness before him as possible.

Kain had said that the interior of the spire had been larger then its exterior when he had visited it. Raziel did not have the same impression, but there were a lot of collapsed and crumbled entrances to see as he passed by. This seems to suggest that once the available space had been much greater. Perhaps with the deaths of the Guardians who had built their place, the magics that compressed space had dissipated with them.

Coming through a passageway and into a large chamber with a high vaulted ceiling Raziel suddenly found himself putting his foot down into something wet with a loud splat noise. He quickly raised his foot away and held the wraith blade forward to illuminate the ground. The pale blue light revealed a squelching oozing muddy surface.

A quick glance with a wave of the wraith blade revealed most if not all of the cavern's floor was like this, a marshy area that seemed to some radiate a sense of tenseness within him as he beheld it. Most was much but there was a pool at the far end of the cave with a muddy hillock in the centre, separated from more stable ground by a few feet of open water. Memory stirred as he recalled the stories he had been told of Dark Eden and the deeds done here.

-0-

**"According to Kain's boasted exploits it was here he that he felled Bane and Dejoule. Whatever physical signs of their struggle had long since faded but the aura of violence remained, as if seeped into the earth itself."**

-0-

There was another opening, a large doorway, just to his right. It was some way above, just up atop a rocky crevice which had once been a balcony before collapsing into the mud. Raziel made it way over and easily hauled himself up onto it, his feet making a disgusting slurping noise as they emerged from the grime. Quickly he slipped through the doorway, holding the wraith blade out like a torch to light his way.

This section of the tower seemed to have fared better then others as the walls were relatively intact with little sigh of wear and tear. It seemed almost like an area isolated and then frozen in time. As such his presence, an intruder in such a place, made him feel distinctly uneasy. That feeling was only heightened when he came across the large metal fragments scattered across the floor off to one side.

Given where he was and the history of this place, he knew what they were and a brief examination confirmed it. They were fragments of Sarafan armour, a very old design, badly beaten and torn to pieces by savage claws and repeated beatings. This was the armour of Malek, the Guardian of the Pillar of Conflict.

For failing to protect the circle when they had been attacked by Vorador, in revenge for the murder of Janos, Malek had been brutally punished. His physical human body had been destroyed and his soul bound to the armour he had worn in life. This rendered him immortal but without any physical sensation. No pleasure, no pain; an eternity of numbness. It was a terrible curse which had driven the paladin to eventual madness.

Here in this dark place, Malek had finally found some form of peace. Summoned to protect the circle from Kain, he instead found himself battling his old rival Vorador. Their struggle had finally concluded with Vorador's victory. The Vampire had shattered his body into pieces, finally killing him and Kain had taken the helmet back to restore the Pillar from whence it came.

Here the rest of the armour had lain, undisturbed and forgotten about for centuries, half buried in a dark ruin tucked away in a corner of the world. Somehow that seemed fitting.

Another doorway opened on the left and this caught Raziel's eye as he looked up, for there was a gleam coming from within as the light of the wraith blade fell over something reflective. Cautiously he approached and paused at the doorway, leaning in to survey the interior before he dared venture inside.

The adjourning room was squat with a low ceiling but distant walls, made of the same dark stonework as the rest of the tower. But this place had had a singular and disturbing intriguing purpose. Placed at regular intervals across the walls and in rows on stone tables crisscrossing the room were dusty, ancient pieces of machinery. Twisting, snake like copper pipes and valves connected to large glass containers of various shapes and sizes loomed large. It was a room of utter bizarre science.

Raziel stepped cautiously into the tangled mess of pipe and tube, glancing this way and that. The light of the wraith blade gleaming off each shiny surface and casting long dark shadows behind them. Sealed away and isolated as it was, this room had been very well preserved. Too well preserved. This was one place Raziel fervently wished the passage of time might have erased.

-0-

**"While I was no alchemist I knew what place this was. Anacrothe's laboratory. Here the deranged Guardian of States had pondered how he might convert the world to suite the evil thoughts running through his mind."**

-0-

Most of the glass tanks were empty. Some were not, filled to the prim with a strange green pickling liquid and suspending inside them were the mummified corpses once used for scientific study and display. A few corpses were the corpses of various animals. Others were those men. A few more were pickled body parts, a hand here, a foot there. Like the equipment itself the samples were remarkably well preserved.

Not much was known of the Guardian of the Pillar of States. He was a Guardian who died not by Kain's hand but another. To hear Kain tell it, Anacrothe had met his end confronting Mortanious. The necromancer had killed his college right then and there, leaving himself as the last of the circle Kain had needed to slay.

Just beyond these preserved examples lay large cages made of thick metal bars, set against the far wall and black even in the shadows. Within them lay heaps of old bones covered in a layer of dust, the remains of creatures locked inside and left to rot. Every bone was hideous twisted, mutated and abnormal. A display of a warped preserve view of nature the captives must have been before an absent warden condemned them to starve to death.

Raziel's expression, highlighted by the light of his soul in sword form, was one of intense disgust and loathing.

-0-

**"Its resemblance to the chambers of Ambraxas and his abominations in Fanum-Divus was not lost on me."**

-0-


	5. Key

Raziel might have missed the secret door and simply gone back the way he had came, had it not been a single thin crack which in the light cast by the wraith blade cast a tell tale shadow. His eyes caught, the blue wraith quickly came over to inspect it. Soon he saw that it was indeed a hidden door, set so flush into the wall that it was all but invisible from the outside and only the passage of time had degraded it enough to reveal it.

As expected a simple push did not cause it to move, nor even a shove with all the strength Raziel could call to bare. Deciding for a more forceful tactic, he backed off a few paces and arched the talons of one hand forward, channelling all the telekinetic force he could muster into that confined space. It help the pressure building, more and more, until his hand began to tremble.

Then with a rush he released it, aiming all that built up force directly at that crack. It collided with the a tremendous force and several of the nearby glass tanks exploded into fragments from the shockwave. Chunks of brick went flying in as a thick dust cloud came bellowing out, choking everything in an obscuring haze for a moment. Then, when it had settled, a dark passageway leading down was ominously revealed.

-0-

**"So bent on pursuing the rouge Guardians themselves, Kain had overlooked that this place would hold secrets of its own. I would not."**

-0-

The passageway had crude steps cut into it, leading down into utter blackness further then the light of the wraith blade could reveal. But what caught Raziel's attention were a set of what seemed to be three brass pipes set into the wall of the tunnel with thick iron brackets, following it downward. They fed into the ceiling above at the roof of the tunnel at this end, but what their purpose was at this point a mystery.

Step by slow step, Raziel began to descend. The stairs were a spiral, going down and down further then Raziel began to find comfortable. The stairs kept going deep into the earth, well past the confines of the tower itself. He had the disturbing feeling of tones of dirt and rock crowding in either side of him as he travelled. The air slowly growing colder, dryer, staler; as if it hadn't been disturbed for a very long time.

The pipes continued to feed down through the wall as well, a continual slender snaking ribbon of metal. Gradually more pipes began to emerge from the wall as he continued down, some on his left and some on his right. One by one they appeared snaking in to join the others and before long he found himself walking down a tunnel compressed of nothing but copper and iron.

The bottom of the hidden stairs was a surprise in and of itself. Without warning they just stopped, the tunnel opening up to reveal a much larger passageway with an arching roof overhead. Raziel held the wraith blade aloft to illuminate as much of it as he could, blinking in surprise as he found the walls of this tunnel were not made of stone but were paved with yet more metal.

It seemed like he was inside of a pipe, with smaller pipes feeding across its inner surface. These smaller pipes all seemed to come together at various spots where they tangled and connected plinths which housed an assortment of gauges and large valves made of pitted iron. A construction of this magnitude must have taken hundreds of men to build, or just one sorcerer.

-0-

**"Such ancient devices, so obviously alchemic in nature, clearly told of Anacrothe's presence here in bygone eras. There had to be something of interest down here to have required his attention. Whatever it was, it was worth investigating."**

-0-

The engineers of Kain's empire had specialised in such construction to allow the tapping of natural reserves of gas or black gold. Somehow Raziel did not think these pipes served the same purpose. The creators of this place would have no need of such resources. A brief examination of the gauges however did not reveal exactly what these pipes were intended to syphon, having only a complex set of number dials scrawled into them.

Whatever the machines purpose, with Anacrothe dead for long over a millennia it was inert and dead and likely to forever remain so. Somehow Raziel could not take the feeling this place played a part in the perversions of Dark Eden above, as if the triad of insane circle members had tapped into some unknown resource in order to fuel their expanding influence. But what kind of fuel would have been of use?

The mystery deepened when, quite unexpectedly, Raziel came across verification of Ajatar's assertions. Quite sharply around a twisted corner this pipe like construction came to a sudden halt. The smaller pipes continued to slip down into the earth below but the large space opened up on a large stone chamber. A wall had been broken through in eons past by the pipes, revealing this hidden and forgotten place, far older then the tower and devices above.

There was no question he was looking at a ruin of the Ancient Vampires for he recognised the style of their architecture, especially so long and well preserved. He had seen enough of their shrines and ruins to know it immediately. Thick and near choking levels of dust covered the floors so as he stepped into the chamber he left large footprints, puffing clouds bellowing up from around his feet. This place had been isolated and abandoned for so terribly long that in its utter silence, broken only by his own steps, he felt almost as if he were stepping into another world entirely.

Could this be the remains of the Serioli settlement they were searching for? It seemed quite probable but some verification was definitely in order. Crossing the chamber, his footsteps an intruding noise, Raziel began examining the walls. They were just as dusty as everything around them, uniform grey and unremarkable. Gently drawing his left hand across it however proved his suspicion correct. Directly under the centuries of dust, the tradition of past historical events in mural form had continued.

It took some effort to unearth and whole mural as it covered a large section of the wall and Raziel was careful to be gentle as not to damage it. When his dusting was finished he stepped back to contemplate the image in its revealed entirety.

-0-

**"These images were of Ancient Vampire origin to be certain but their content was vastly different. This was the first image I had seen to depict some of their history before the worship of their Oracle God and his wheel of fate was enforced. It was more confusing than enlightening."**

-0-

The mural had several elements to it and none of them seemed connected, at least not at first inspection. The central piece showed an Ancient Vampire, standing before a large towering mountain peak, holding up what looked like a staff. Then Raziel noticed his error. Not a staff but a war hammer, the blunt end partially hidden by the spread wings of the wielder. He was holding the weapon out and aloft towards the mountain as he were challenging to battle.

Around the figure the elements of Serioli forging were erupting. The air spiralled above him. Fire burned to his left. Water spouted up from his right. The earth cracked beneath him. All the elements flowed around the figure, focusing towards the hammer as if they were under its express command. But atop that mountain was another, familiar symbol. Raziel had seen the ringed spiral which represented the focused Spirit. Could this be an image representing the first of the Serioli, the pioneer of their control of elemental powers?

The image to the right of the central one was even more strange. It showed dozens if not hundreds of winged creatures flying in the sky, all struggling and battling with one another in a furious and savage aerial conflict. If the scale of the land depicted below was any indication then each one of the creatures was of impressive and monstrous size. Acutely Raziel was reminded of the beast, that terrible winged creature which had spirited away Asmodeus after their confrontation in his old clan territory. He found himself wanting to use a certain name, to call the creatures by that name for they resembled nothing else, but his practical side refused to allow it.

As the image progressed these creatures began to fall apart, breaking into what looked like many different fragments of bone and raining their remains down over the land. Many whole skeletons crashed into the ground and were buried beneath it. Figures, primitive humans it seemed, were shown running for any shelter they could from the debris raining down around them. But some took with them pieces of bone, cradling them close as if they were precious items.

The meaning of this mural baffled him. Was it meant to be symbolic or literal? The former seemed unlikely as murals he had seen depicted in Vampire ruins before had depicted real events if artistically envisioned. If the later, then just what where these winged creatures and why were their bones so important?

The image to the left was the most striking of the three and the one that took most of Raziel's attention. Ancient Vampires, perhaps half a dozen, were all down on their knees with their hands outstretched towards the heavens. Their poses were ones of entreat, pleading, their expressions contorted with desperate need. All around them lay destruction, the earth broken open as if from some monumental earthquake. Trees were toppled over and buildings crumbled into rubble.

They were all beckoning to a symbol high above but to Raziel's surprise it wasn't the circular symbol of his former Master and the wheel of fate. But rather to a twisting serpentine form which rose and dives through the clouds above like a celestial serpent. As the head of the creature reared Raziel could see its very whale like face with five points of green which were clearly meant to be eyes.

Raziel recognised the form instantly. The Keeper, eternal counterpart and spurned companion of his former master the Elder. He was depicted in the act of flying away, turning his back on those who called to him for aid and leaving the way open for the far smaller symbol shown behind him; the far more recognisable icon of the Wheel of Fate. Raziel's eyes narrowed into a grim frown.

-0-

**"It would seem that in their hour of need, the Ancient Vampires had turned to the Keeper for salvation. But he had ignored them and spurned their pleas. Dejected and with nowhere else to turn, they fell into the hands of my former master. It seemed even the Keeper was not devoid of blame in all this. If he had answered their prayers perhaps the history of the world might have changed dramatically."**

-0-

He stood there contemplating the mural for a little while longer, wondering if these were events meant to be told in a specific order of continuity and if so did one read them left to right or right to left? It seemed to make more sense to read it from right to left, backwards from the usual style which set this apart from other murals he had seen. Perhaps this was an early method which had eventually dropped out of use?

This evidence of the Keeper's callousness being a factor in events was unsettling. He had never been fool enough to believe that the being's motives were altruistic but still his methods and goals seemed far less destructively inclined then his counterpart. This threw that into question and Raziel found himself wondering exactly how much of all they had done had merely been a ploy to wrest control from the Elder only to give it to the Keeper. Exchanging one cruel master of fate for another.

In any event, he had found the traces of the ancient Serioli they had been looking for. It was best now for him to go back and let the others know.

"I was wondering when you should show." A sudden voice said into the silence, so unexpectedly Raziel nearly jumped. "I knew you'd have to come here sooner or later."

He turned around sharply, right arm held back with the wraith blade at the ready. The figure standing there was a woman, slender with a wide brimmed black hat and matching clothes. Her hair was also black, making her a narrow pillar of shadow even down here in this darkness. She was leaning against a rectangular pillar as if she had been there the entire time he had been enwrapped with his mural contemplations. She was totally at ease in his presence, although her eyes were firmly on the wraith blade. Calm she might be, but she was clearly no fool.

"No not be alarmed. I mean you no harm." She said, raising a hand reassuringly.

"You are Ophiel -Divus. Admodeus' lap dog. You would mean me nothing but harm." Raziel replied crispy, having recognised her from Kain's description immediately. She smiled warmly at him and gently chuckled, one hand to her throat.

"Oh well then you know who I am. Saves times with introductions." She said. "But you still know me very little. I follow Asmodeus' whims because it serves a greater purpose, not out of sworn fealty."

He maintained a distance from her but kept the wraith blade at the ready, prepared to dive at her in a deadly swing at any moment. If she had found him here, then other Divus might not be far away.

"Your reasoning escapes me." He told her. "Kain told me you were loyal to Asmodeus."

"And Asmodeus was the one who had Kain rescued from the void, by my hand, I might add." Ophiel said. "An interesting set of circumstances, wouldn't you agree? This is the long game we all play. The kind that takes eons and every move on the board is a complex affair. My motives..." Her eyes seem to twinkle in the light from the wraith blade. "..don't exactly align with Asmodeus' all the time."

"You speak riddles." Raziel said flatly. "I don't have time for riddles."

"No I suppose you don't." She agreed after a brief moment of contemplative silence, her shadowy face thoughtful. "And frankly neither do I." She straightened then and reaching up, she took off her hat and inclined her head respectfully. "Ultimately my loyalty is to the king of Fanum-Divus." Her eyes caught his from between her dark bangs. "To you, Raziel."

He stared at her with an open disdainful expression.

"You must think me a simpleton to use such an obvious ploy." He grunted with profound contempt. "I would have thought affiliation with Moebius would have taught the Divus better cunning."

She looked up at them, her lips curled either end in very feline like smile.

"And if I can prove my sincerity?" She asked.

"Then I would be even more suspicious." That made her laugh.

"That is how it should be." She replaced her hand and reached into the folds of her top for something. "But regardless whether you believe me or not, you will need this." Whatever she withdrew she tossed to him. He caught it with his free hand, looking down at it. The item was a strange device, a blending of copper and cold. It was delicately constructed, merging the two metals near perfectly and had been moulded to resemble the head of a snake with an open mouth, fangs extended around a glistening and perfectly cut square ruby. Its resemblance to the top of Moebius' staff did little to reassure.

"Fanum-Divus exists outside of Nosgoth's regular flow of continuity." Ophiel was saying as he looked at it. "When the Divus require to enter the time stream they need an anchor, a key, allowing them to safely return to the city when their work is done." She pointed at it. "That is my key. It will allow you entry into our city whenever you desire."

Raziel turned it over in his hand, one eyebrow raised as he stared down at it.

"With an ambush ready to met me upon my arrival, I am sure." He said with the highest amount of scorn in his voice. Ophiel just spread her hands.

"As you said, I'd have to think you a simpleton to use such an odvious ploy." She said, throwing his own words back at him. "And while you are indeed many things, a simpleton is not one of them." When Raziel did not immediately say anything she replaced her hat on her head and straightened. "It is the only way you are going to get close enough to Asmodeus to kill him. He will not leave the city until the army he amasses is ready to march and by then it will be too late. There is no other method."

Raziel's head snapped up at this.

"Army?" He repeated intensely.

"It comes soon, once the time is right. The promised day is nearly upon us now. The legions of the Nemesis are reborn to serve their new king." Ophiel stepped away from the pillar she had been leaning against and into the centre of the room, trailing dust as she went. "The question now is which is stronger: your distrust of me or your desire to see Asmodeus destroyed and Nosgoth saved from final destruction?"

And there, she had him and he knew it. His face creased as his eyes narrowed in angry resentment. He looked down at the artefact in his grasp again. The beady eyes of the carved snakes head glared back at him hatefully and the ruby seemed less a gem and more like a heart being stabbed with venomous fangs.

"If you are really loyal to me then tell me what this promised day is. What does it entail? What role does the Ark play?" He asked her quickly. Ophiel just shook her head, her expression quite sad.

"I cannot tell you that. I wish I could, but I can't." She replied.

"Why not?"

"Because I do not know. Not anymore and not yet." Her answer made him blink for a moment but then he stood a step towards her, eyes narrowing in frustration.

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Raziel demanded. She took another step back, maintaining the distance between them.

"If you wish to learn all that then you must seek out your book." She said in a strange tone of voice. Intense and with great emphasis on the final word. "Only that can give you enlightenment." He had been going to march right on up to her by her words made him pause in confusion.

"My book?" He stated in bafflement.

Ophiel inclined her head to him and continued to step backwards. Her hat was tilted forward so her eyes were hidden and only her mouth could be seen, twisted into an impudent but friendly smile.

"There is a very good reason that the kings of Fanum-Divus are referred to as the 'scribes of heaven.'" She told him and without another word she vanished, stepping backwards into the midst of a translocation spell before Raziel could stop her. As the glistening trail of her departure faded, he looked down again at the key he held in his hand once more.

He had thought he had gotten to a point in the game where clear cut enemies and allies were for once perfectly arranged on opposite sides of the board. What he had seen the heard here had put that hope into question. But more honestly he felt disappointed with him for having even for a moment entertained the notion of simplicity.


	6. Dragon

The soft, luminous and unearthly glow of Ariel's manifested form emerged out of the air beside him. Her face was the half skull of corruption, the expression on the remainder of her face one of baffled incredulity and surprise.

"You are not seriously considering..." She began in dismay, floating around to look Raziel right in the face. The blue wraith was still studying the artefact in his hand, turning it this way and that as he looked over the attention to detail that had gone into its construction. Each individual scale on the snakes head had been scared, the eyes a pair of polished black stones. The centre ruby was utterly exquisite, a fine flawless jewel that in another time and place would have made its owner very rich indeed. If nothing else, Fanum-Divus boasted artisans that put even the Serioli to shame.

"A back door into the fortress of the enemy would be useful." He replied, still looking the thing over. He spoke slowly, introspectively, as if talking to himself. Ariel hovered down in his field of vision suddenly so he couldn't ignore her.

"A door with a key handed to you by the enemy themselves!" She reminded him with some heat, her one visible eye glaring at him. "You said yourself they will just be waiting in ambush for you. This is obviously a trap!"

Raziel glanced up at her face for a moment but it was clear from his far off expression that his mind was clearly elsewhere.

"Yes, 'obviously'." He repeated faintly, looking back down at the artefact in his hand. He hefted it up in the air and caught it again, his talons clasped firmly around it. He shook his head. "Too obviously." At her still angry but entreating expression he added; "If this were indeed a ploy to lure me to my doom I suspect they would not be so clumsy and obvious in the attempt. I do not trust that woman, Ariel. Whatever ulterior motives she harbours she'll try to unveil soon enough."

The former Balance Guardian floated away from him. Slowly he face began to clear, adopting its far more pleasing whole appearance. Her expression however was still highly sceptical and disapproving.

"Asmodeus?" She asked. Raziel nodded.

"Possibly. His goading was painfully transparent." When they had met in the ruins, Asmodeus had been so blatant in his provoking that Raziel had been instantly suspicious. Perhaps having dealt with a schemer and manipulator like Moebius for so long had heightened his sense of deception which allowed him to see the goading for what it was, a lure. He did not know what game the new king of the Divus intended to play but whatever it was, it clearly involved being permitted access to the impossible city. Ariel however was still not impressed.

"Then why follow his lead?" She asked him. Raziel gave her an almost impish look, his eyes alight with a devilish delight.

"Because if he honestly thinks I'm that easy to ensnare then he deserves to have the tables turned on him."

Activating the artefact was not difficult. The jewel in the centre was not entirely fixed, he discovered. It acted as a sort of button that when pressed into the surrounding metal summoned forth the energies contained within. There was a soft click and then the world around him began to peel away. Colours faded first, leaving him standing in a world where everything was either black or white. Then the definitions of objects around him disappeared and he stood in a completely featureless void. There was a tingling sensation in his skin as the transfer took place, passing over him like a wave. He felt as if he had stepped through some sort of barrier that he couldn't see but had left traces of itself upon him.

His first journey into the time beyond the rim of time had been turbulent, chaotic. The two of them had been tossed on a sea of uncertainty so powerful Ariel had nearly been ripped from his soul. This transfer was far less eventful. The world around them simply vanished and after a short period in a void of nothing, new features began to take their place.

Tall columns and thick walls of stone began to form around him, a vast hallway of marble floors and vast vaulted ceilings. Despite just being a hallway it had all the artistry and vastness of a cathedral hall. He recognised the style of the architecture immediately. Raziel had been here before, when he had been sent to rescue Kain from being cast outside of time itself by his first incarnation.

Off to one side a little distance away was a tall opening that expanded out into what seemed a balcony. Quickly Raziel moved over to it and peered out, keeping to one side to avoid being seen. The view he saw was one he expected.

High above was an expansive and unending sky of nothing but a white void. Far below was another abyss, utterly black in counterpoint. The white void was the visual representation of the collective essence of all time and space. The black was the exact opposite, an ocean of nothingness where there was no time and space. Dark, cold, emptiness.

Stretching between each void was a bridge of stone, a pillar of hundreds of thousands of buildings. Together they formed a city so vast it defied comprehension. From this vantage point he could see the sculpture, the massive winged figure made out of so many buildings coming together. A crotched Ancient Vampire holding up a stone circle with the symbol of the Wheel of Fate, the symbol for eternity, engraved across its the miles of its radius.

Before, the face of that figure had been his own or rather that of his first incarnation who had ruled this city. Now the head was covered in large and complex scaffolding as major alterations were made. The work was not yet complete but even from this distance Raziel recognised the emerging face of Asmodeus-Divus. The new king.

-0-

**"Fanum-Divus, the impossible city; home of the so called Saints of the Wheel of Fate. Stretching the miles between the absolutes of everything and nothing and existing outside the rim of time, the city served as my former masters seat of power and capital. It was from here that the true threat to Nosgoth came, the Ark and the Promised Day. So far it seemed Ophiel's offer had been genuine. I knew not what game she was playing but I was done being someone else's pawn."**

-0-

There was no sign of the Ark, at least not from this vantage point. The dock for the ship, or at least where it had been when he had been here last, was just out of sight somewhere down below. It had been under construction then, the slave race kept captive in the bowels of the city forced to labour in its building. Raziel could not be sure but it seemed fair to assume that whatever this 'promised day' was, the Ark was crucial to it and that perhaps he might be able to gauge how much time they had left by the state of the Ark's assembly.

He had no illusions about going undetected in the city for long and there was no telling how long he had before his presence was noticed. He also had to remind himself that while here, he was uniquely vulnerable. Fanum-Divus had no shadowy spectral realm side to itself. If he lost his physical form here it could prove unpleasant. Was that was Asmodeus planned for him? To be destroyed here with no place of refuge to flee to? Somehow Raziel doubted it.

The towering hallway curved off around to the left and Raziel proceeded down it with some caution, moving back and forth between walls and pausing for a moment between each one to make sure he wasn't being watched. The hallways was so open that crossing it he felt horribly exposed. Ewoden and his pack had traversed this city by moving bath and forth through dry runs within the larger walls, all but unseen. Raziel kept his eyes open for any smaller doorway which might prove an entrance to this inner maze. He felt he could hide himself if necessary in such tight corridors.

He had one close call when several figures came down the hallway in the direction he was travelling. Most of them were homunculi, the mindless terracotta servants of the Divus. They moved in two lines protecting the inner group. Two were Ancient Vampires by a third was Human. They moved together, talking in low voices and it seemed they were all of equal rank given how easily they chatted.

Raziel ducked behind a column set into the wall and crotched in whatever shadow he could find and waited for them to pass by. He had no doubt that the three in the middle were Divus for they wore the same style of robes and shin guards. They seemed distracted by their conversation, not really paying much attention to their surroundings. Raziel was not so sanguine about their guards however. The homunculi were not living creatures and responded to stimuli instantly.

"Clearly you haven't seen them perform at the forge and anvil." One of them was saying, one of the Ancient Vampires back over his shoulder. "I tell you they can work miracles with steel."

"Oh, I've no doubt they're good." Another of them, the Human bringing up the rear replied jovially. "But they are just slaves. They have to be good. They're required to be good. But their craft is still slave craft. I'll take a sword fashioned by an artisan of the Divus over one forged by a slave any time."

The first spread shrugged his shoulders.

"Oh well, if you're going to reduce it to the worth of the maker's brand..."

Fortunately however the entire group marched past without even a glance in his direction, not even the homunculi seemed to notice that he was there. Raziel waited, watching them vanish around the bend in the hallway, before he quickly moved on. That brief but tense moment had illustrated very well that time was against him. He had to discover what he could of the enemies plans as quickly as he could and then leave.

Eventually the hallway opened up into an even larger, cavernous chamber which was nothing short of colossal in size. The expanse of it was so large that he could not see the far side of it in any great detail it was so distant. Far below was a plain but expansive floor of stone, without any of the ornateness that marked other places in this city.

It was what was on it that interested Raziel. He was a far distance up but even from here he could see the stacks of large boxes and cubical, all piled up together in a forest of containers which seemed to cover the entire floor of the colossal chamber from near wall to far. Raziel recognised them instantly. They were the animal cages, the pens he had wandered through while trying to escape Ewoden's pack of werewolves.

The pens contained much animal life from the furthest reaches of Nosgoth, perhaps the greatest collection fauna in all existence. But this was no mere extensive zoo. These were provisions, a continuality of life which was intended to feed the Ark's main passenger while on the vessels long voyage.

Craning his neck, Raziel looked out as far as he could. Yes, they were there to. The boxes of planets and other forms of flora that he had also seen being stacked, just off to the side and separate from the animals for cataloguing. He recognised them by the occasional flashes of intense green to be seen in an open top here and there.

"They must be preparing to load them onto the Ark." Ariel's whisper sounded inside his mind, seeing the scene through his eyes. Her tone was urgently grim. Raziel agreed with her sentiments. These containers had been moved here and piled up, ready for stacking into whatever cargo hold existed on the Ark. If they were ready to begin the loading of such provisions then time had to short indeed.

The hallway he had emerged from continued in a bridge like catwalk which carried on over the huge chamber. It was one of several such bridges all of them at different levels, some nearer the floor others nearer the ceiling. The one Raziel found himself on was one of the higher ones, giving him an excellent vantage point.

"They are stumbling blocks hardly worth mentioning." A voice suddenly said, distantly but loudly enough to be perfectly audible. "But they need to be ground into dust all the same." It was a voice Raziel recognised. Crouching low he peered over the edge of his platform down the one below. It was far up enough for him not to be seen but not so far as to obscure his own view.

There he was, Asmodeus-Divus the new king of Fanum-Divus. He walked out brazenly, confidently onto the bridge with that silly silver crown on his head. He had no guards with him, no protection of any kind.

Raziel tensed, raising his right hand to summon the wraith blade. One well aimed pounce, that was all it would take. If he could land the blow truly enough Asmodeus would be dead before he even knew what had hit him.

A shadow emerged from the hall Asmodeus had entered from. It was a towering shadow, a terrible darkening with the outline of some immense demonic bat. Then a head slithered out into view and the sight of it made Raziel freeze in stunned disbelief and awed terror. Within the depths of his soul, Ariel gasped in no less surprise and recoiled. Backing away in fear was something he had never seen her do but at this precise moment he thought it a perfectly sane and rational reaction.

The creature following Asmodeus was monstrous, towering over him and raising its head on the end of a long serpentine neck. Its body although slender in proportion was larger any creature Raziel had ever seen, made all the gargantuan by the webbed bat like wings which spread out from its back. The length of it was impressive, a long twisting tail held out behind its oddly proportioned and muscles back legs.

The head was equine in shape but the mouth spilt open like that of a snakes, lined with scales up to a very Hylden like crest of bone, spilt into two halves, which curved back from the head to protect the back of the skull. Thick spikes of bone jutted out around the jaw, over the eye ridges and the pelvis of the creature, alternating in size depending on their location.

Downy feathers of alternating black and silver sprouted from the creature in various places, such as behind the crest and across the large forepaws and just behind the back legs and along the tail which itself ended in a quiff of feathers which flared out occasionally as the beast walked.

This creature seemed a chimera, perhaps one of Ambraxus' making, a mixing of the traces of so many races bundled onto the frame of a reptile. But these parts melded together so cohesively, so perfectly, that they seemed natural, a mere part of this creatures bizarre and unique evolution. As Raziel stared he knew there was a name for this creature. Only one name to fit to it but try as he might he could not bring himself to even utter the word inside his own head.

"Dragon..." Ariel's voice said for him, the awe and terror clear as it radiated from her to mingle with his own. Now those creatures he had seen depicted in the Serioli mural had a definite name.

Without a doubt this was the creature which had whisked overhead during his confrontation with Asmodeus. He had had no opportunity to see the beast in any detail then, it had all happened so fast, but now that he was here faced with the thing he could see it in full disturbing detail. It was larger then any demon, stronger then even the champion of Turel's crucible arena and the sense of power radiating from it was overwhelming. It was a sense that Vorador or Ajatar might make more of but Raziel was not immune to the feeling of it and it left him crotched low and silent.

_-"Is that all you need me for?"-_ A voice asked, a powerful telepathic thundering that bounced several times off the inside of Raziel's head. - _"A living war machine?"-_ Once a Vampire, he had known and experienced the Whisper where ideas and words were exchanged over great distances privately between one Vampire and another. This was no whisper, but a shout directly in his ears and it came from the beast.

The Dragon was glaring down at Asmodeus, neck arched up and the ruff behind its crest flared back. Asmodeus seemed to sway slightly as if he were a blade of grass before a breeze but easily straightened again.

"Ultimately no, but for the moment it will suffice." He replied, dusting off his front with one hand. "Uriel's intelligence is always reliable. He would never say these elements were not a danger to the Promised Day if he were not absolutely certain."

The Dragon however remained unimpressed, its webbed wings spreading and arching out wide to an impressively large wingspan. From above, Raziel could see that these wings looked very much like how his own had seemed and like those of Tiamatu. There were differences though. The Dragon's wings seemed to have more segments and joints in places where his had not and Tiamatu's wings seemed longer on the ends.

_-"I am not some brute engine of destruction for you to wield!"-_ Its thundering thoughts snarled out, lashing with resentful malice at any mind within reach. Asmodeus swayed again, clearly uneasy at being so close to the epic centre of the telepathic shout. Still he stayed where he was, a patient expression on his face.

"With what was promised you for your services, what do you care how are put to use?" He asked almost pleasantly. The Dragon glared down at him, lips pulling back to reveal a maw full of rows of sharp teeth. Asmodeus made a dismissive gesture with one hand towards the beast. "When the Ark leaves this world, the planet is yours to do with as you wish. A blank slate which you can remould in your own image. Rebuild it, destroy it, I care not."

Slowly those scaly lips began to resettle back over the teeth and the Dragon let its wings curl back in upon themselves, tight settling across the curve of its back. It was silent for a long moment before its telepathic voice spoke again.

_-"Yes, about that. There is one other thing I would desire."-_ At this Asmodeus raised an eyebrow questioningly.

"And what might that be?" He asked. The Dragon leaned forward. It's face was far too alien to reveal recognisable expressions but there was something very much like hatred in those cruel, fierce eyes.

-"The one who bit me, the one who dared to drink my blood."- It's thoughts radiated. _-"I want him brought before me, alive and well."-_

Asmodeus blinked.

"Why alive?" The new King of Fanum-Divus asked in genie curiosity. The beast's front claws flexed and dug into the stone of the bridge with a grating noise that echoed through the cassum like space around them all.

_-"Because I want him to see his death approach."-_ The Dragon said. _-"I want him to watch as I shred him down to the very substance of his matter and disperse it to the winds. I want him to see me and know fear."-_

Asmodeus stared up at the creature for another long moment then burst out laughing, that same cynical amused laughter that Raziel had heard him emit before.

"You're a frightfully uncomplicated sort of being, Thanatos." He said, with a grin spreading across his face. "That's why I like you." He turned then, dismissing the creature with a wave of one hand. "I'm sure we can accommodate such a small request. Now go. The Forsaken need to be shown the folly of standing in the way of fate."

Before Raziel could react, he disappeared into a translocation aura which swiftly faded behind him. A moment later, the Dragon lurched over the edge of the bridge in one fluid motion and spread its wings. Gracefully the creature glided down into the chasm below, beating its long wings only a few times before it vanished into a passageway far below that Raziel had not even noticed.

For quite some time Raziel crotched there, still as a statue, before finally he pushed back from the edge and rose to his feet.

"I had heard the legends." Ariel's voice was almost a squeak in his mind, small and timid. They were not qualities that suited her. "But I never imagined..."

"All legends have an origin." Raziel mused, turning to look up at the far end of the bridge he stood upon. Right now he felt very VERY exposed, as if prey for some swooping winged creature from above. "I wonder if this is what Ophiel wanted to show me? If it is, she has made quite the powerful statement of the Divus' strength. But come any mythical foe, we must endurance and survive."

The bridge was so long that traversing it took some time and Raziel found himself looking over his shoulder almost every step of the way. He did not feel safe until he had crossed that wide open space and come to the hallways on the far side. Even then he glanced back often to make sure he was not being pursued. Once he was a ways deep into the hallways beyond he quickly ducked behind a column and took a moment to steady himself. He reminded himself that he had faced far worse, monstrous Vampires, Demons, spectres and eldritch abominations.

Still the appearance of a Dragon had shaken him and privately he was forced to admit that. Although he supposed it had not been the image of the beast but rather the raw power he had sensed within its body. To have such potent strength at the beck and call of the Divus was a truly frightening thing. Glancing back the way he had come, Raziel waited for some sign of pursuit. But there was nothing.

Slowly he moved out, step by step until he had rounded a bend. Now out of sight from the wide open chasm he quickened his pace into a run and did not stop running until he reached the end of the hallway, breathing hard from the exertion. Briefly he wondered what he was going to say about all this to the others when he got back. Kain, if no one else, had to be informed.

The room that opened out before him stepped beyond the hallway was a much smaller space then the one he had just left, being perhaps a hundred feet or so across. Large lit braziers of copper lined the walls at regular intervals, leading up either side of a flight of wide onyx stairs. The light from the fires in the braziers was casting gleaming highlights onto a pair of bronze statues of lions which stood at the bottom of those stairs, their paws raised as they were moulded in the act of pouncing.

Water was pouring from small openings in the high wall through a set of troths in the walls which curved down in two descending arcs collect into a pool at the bottom of the stairs, the floor of which was decorated with a mosaic of a golden fish. The pond was perhaps a foot or so deep and the water seemed to be kept recycled for there was a grate set in the outside edge.

At the top the stairs was a towering door, perhaps twenty to thirty feet high and embossed to a mirror shine. Upon the door was the infinity symbol of the Wheel of Fate and around it were smaller symbols that Raziel did not recognise. It seemed to be a form of writing, somewhere between runes and glyphs. Ascending those stairs the blue wraith paused to consider the door from close up. It did not appear to be all one piece. It was separated into various parts slotted together, all joined to the symbol in the centre. Raziel had the sense of a complex mechanism just out of sight, holding the door tightly shut and all its different firmly together.

It had no visible means of opening itself. There was no handle, switch or latch of any kind. When Raziel put his hand out to touch the door, its surface crackled with a hidden energy, discharging a stinging bolt of lightning up his arm causing him to jerk away and step back with a grunt. Either side of the door the two falls of water cracked and hummed with that same power, the pool behind him at the bottom of the stairs glowing a bright pale blue. After a moment everything returned to normal.

Raziel frowned intently as he found his way bared, at least for now, by an impassable barrier sealed not just with a complex lock but magic as well.

-0-

**"This door clearly was not intended to be opened by anyone except the chosen few. I felt my path lay through here but I did not currently possess the means to bypass the obstacle. It seemed I had more to learn."**

-0-

The magic's of Fanum-Divus were very different to the wizardry practised in Nosgoth itself, its nature a strange art known only to the Divus themselves. Raziel doubted he could easily breach such a barrier by force, tempted as he was to summon the wraith blade and slash his way through. Even if that did work the sound of it would summon half the city down on his head.

Considering his options for a long moment he knew there was only one thing left for him to do. With a grunt of annoyance he took out the key Ophiel had given him from the small pounce in his clan drape he had tucked it into. Depressing the button like setting of the jewel again, he watched as the details of Fanum-Divus began to fade to white all around him.

Once more he passed into the white and then through that to the cold darkness of where he had started, the Serioli ruin buried deep beneath Dark Eden. The mural up on the wall was as he left it, wiped clean by his own hand. Evidentially the key had returned from back to normal causality a mere moment after he left.

The blue wraith glanced back at the murals and the story it told, then down at the key in his hand. Ajatar had been right. There was much to learn here, more then she could ever have imagined. Whether or not there would be time left to put that knowledge to use was a different question altogether and with a Dragon's might added to the arsenal of their enemy the odds of that time being generous were slim.


	7. Water

Many different doors branched off from this central chamber, with most of them leading into hallways with stairs leading up in various directions. Different ancient symbols were carved above the doors. Logically, Raziel supposed, they ought to represent the nature of the destinations these doorways lead to. But since he could not read the ancient script the icons meant nothing to him.

All but one that is. For over one doorway, tucked off to the left hand side of the chamber, was a symbol he had seen before. It was a circular blue and teal design, a smaller circle directly inside a larger circle with two curling patterns that looked very much like waves joining them either side. It was the Ancient Vampire symbol for Water, one of elements used by the Serioli in their arcane forging techniques.

It seemed then that his theory that the Serioli, perhaps even this Ukko himself, being the creators of all the previous shrines and forges he had discovered had some merit after all. Raziel quickly entered the hallway to investigate, holding the wraith blade out before him to light his way. The dust from the ancient and near undisturbed hidden ruin puffing out around him with every step.

As he progressed further and further up the stairs the hallways led onto there was a curious sensation, a deep thrumming that he seemed to feel resonate in the air about him. It was so acute that as he went, there was less and less dust on the floor, as if the floor itself was resonating and vibrating just enough to keep it from settling. Everything seemed to close in as if compacted.

At the top of the stairs was a door, the kind that the Ancient Vampire hand impression required to open it. Placing his own similarly shaped hand upon the symbol in the centre, the activated the arcane mechanism and the door half's slide to one side. The sound of the grating stone was very loud in the utter silence of this dark and buried ruin.

The room beyond was a large circular domed chamber with highly decorated walls running up to the central point of the ceiling. From this point large and elaborate looking metallic pendulum was suspended, point down towards a circular pool and hung above it motionless. Ringing the pool was a series of flat elevated stone surfaces, also highly decorated with symbols and other elaborate markings.

-0-

**"This chamber's design seemed familiar to the various elemental forges I had come across on my travels. Was this an early Serioli forging room?"**

-0-

Slowly Raziel advanced into the room, holding the Wraith blade out horizontally before him so its light could reveal as much of the room as possible. However as he approached the pool in the centre of the chamber, a pale but strong glow began to emanate from it. It was a pulsing blue light, rising and falling at regular intervals. Raziel stopped and held himself very still, watching that pool for a long moment.

Whatever was in there wasn't water. It was a strange viscous looking liquid that itself was emitting the light, making its properties hard to determine from simple observation. It sat there, gently bubbling and oozing, bathing everything in the blue light it cast and making the shadows produced seem all the darker for it. Slowly Raziel began to approach again, coming right up to the ring of waist high surfaces around the pool but prudently keeping them between himself and the anomaly.

He had never seen anything quite like this before. Staring at it, he seemed to sense something familiar about the substance. It seemed like he could also feel it tugging itself around as a free soul might do in the spectral realm. But this was a physical thing, manifest in a strange liquid form. What's more there was another power here, melded to that spiritual tugging. It was as if it were a soul stamped with the essence of greater force, fused with it and then held here in place.

"There is rage here." Ariel's troubled voice said in the confines of his mind. "Hatred, pain, terror, bloodlust. All condensed and bottled into a small space. Terrible things were done by this spirit. And enjoyed. Be cautious, Raziel. This is evil encapsulated." Her seeming confirmation of his impressions caused him to frown, hesitating as he studied the ancient devices before him while keeping his hands prudently at his sides. It would be best he observe this thing in greater detail before he touched anything.

The pendulum hanging down from the ceiling was a complex construction made up of many different iron or copper peices. The main chain was perhaps about twenty feet long and on the end of which was suspended a circular disc which was roughly six by six feet and two foot deep. The surface of the disc was divided down the middle into two halves and set with a delicately engraved emblem of the water symbol, outlined in plated silver. It was excellent craftsman ship and looked as new as the day it was made.

All the pieces of the pendulum seemed fitted together without rivets or bolts of any kind. It was as if it were all one big jigsaw puzzle and once whole, each piece complimenting the others. Raziel could not work out how it would have been assembled except by putting all the pieces together at once, or else the thing would have fallen apart. Such syncrocity was beyond merely impressive.

Glancing down at the ring of raised surfaces, he saw they were not just flat decoration. Set into them panels on rails that seemed to be able to slide back and forth in various directions. Each panel had a different symbol on them and looked to have a unique direction in which it could be moved. Not recognising any of the symbols upon them, Raziel studied the panels intently, trying to see if he could work out the purpose of them.

One panel caught his attention for the symbol on it was the same handprint pattern which opened the door. It was the only symbol he recognised. Usually that icon was there to show one how to open something, a sort of latch release point. He stared at it for a moment, then reached out with one hand and laid his palm down upon it.

Immediately his weight caused it to sink in upon itself with a click that was loud in the silence of the darkened chamber. There was a juddering vibration suddenly that ran through the floor beneath his feet and it felt as if he had caused something to release a position it had held for uncounted centuries. Raziel took a cautious step back, glancing around.

The suspended pendulum lowered a few more feet, until the disc at its dangling end was mere inches above the pool of strange glowing liquid. It stopped there, gently swinging for a moment with the movement. Then with a metallic grating noise it began to spilt open, the two halves of it sliding apart to reveal the inside had been hollow. The two sides moved apart and then were hauled up and out of the way.

The revealed contents of the disc was a strange thing indeed. Suspended by a series of hooks like a simple marionette was a figure made entirely out of metal, a type of zinc and copper alloy if he was any judge. It seemed almost skeletal with a thin frame and basic structure. Raziel stared at it, baffled by the sight of the thing.

It looked modelled after the anatomy of an Ancient Vampire, with the appropriate number of fingers and toes and two curving metal plates behind to represent the wings. The face was perhaps the most detailed area on the entire thing, with nose, mouth, eyes and ears clearly detailed and segmented in various different parts which seemed as if they were intended to move.

Raziel had seen golems made by the Ancient Vampires in their own image before, mostly in their capital citadel. Some had made of stone, others of metal and a rare few augmented with the element of fire. Was this a room where such golems were constructed? Could this be an early prototype of such automatons?

There was a sudden lurch, an unexpected quickening. Raziel slid back sharply with a startled oath as the liquid in the pool below suddenly came to life and leapt up, rising in defiance of gravity. The glowing viscous mess was a rising sheet of waving, lashing tentacles of light that surged out in all directions. With a life of its own the jelly like mess rolled up into the air and then seized on the metal puppet above.

With an oozing quickness the luminous mass fed itself directly into the various gaps in the structure of the prone marionette, pushing and wriggling like thousands of maggots. Raziel watched in morbidity as it made the puppet its new home and began to fill out the frame of the thing with its blue light. The puppet jerked and spasmed on its hook, its dangling limbs thrashing wildly this way and that.

Then with a powerful twisting leap it tore itself free of the hook and tumbled free, rolling a short distance before landing on its metal feet. It stood there, silent and glowing with the light of its parasite, before it suddenly lurched up with arms spread and began to scream. It was a terrible sound, high pitched and filled with a terrible resonating pain that stabbed at the ears. Raziel had to clamp his hands over his own.

"DAMN YOU!" It took a whole minute of intelligible ear splitting screaming before two recognisable words emerged from the noise. "I don't answer to you Ukko! I don't answer to anyone!" The thing staggered forward, metal feet clanking on the stone floor. "I am Akal! I kill! I am Akal! I kill!" It held its hands out in front itself, fingers twitching and face contorting in intense and violent emotion.

"Kill..." Its voice was strangely similar to Umah's, speaking as if from the bottom of some metal pit but filled with the recognisable and disturbing overtone of madness. "Kill kill kill KILL KILL!" Every repetition of the world only enhanced the obvious insanity, a truly broken mind. It was the voice of a creature who's rationality had not only deserted him but might never have been entirely there to begin with. "I MUST KILL!"

Then the head snapped up and around and eyes glowing an intense blue light fell right on Raziel. The blue wraith had backed off a good distance but as soon as that gaze was on him he flourished the wraith blade out defensively in front of him.

"You!" It said, turning to face him completely. The mouth moved as it spoke like a regular face and the inner light could be seen within the lips. They pulled back into an animalistic snarl. The metal wings snapped out wide with the creek of metal on metal, gleaming with the light cast from within the gaps of the rest of the body. "You must die!"

Raziel had been expecting the attack. It was a clumsy effort, a mere attempt to grab him with outstretched arms. Raziel easily sidestepped it, swinging his leg up and around to knock his assailants feet out from under him. Akal, if that was indeed his name, stumbled onto all fours with a loud clatter.

He wasn't down for long. He scrambled back up to its feet and lunged back again, clawing at Raziel with the hands of his artificial body. This time however he was faster and his attack had more energy behind it, as if he were learning how best to control the body into which he had been thrust. Raziel ducked out of the way and then brought the wraith blade up and around in swinging arc across his mid section.

The blow bit deep into the puppet body with a wet gurgling sound but then lodged there, as if physically held. Akal's hands lashed out and grabbed Raziel's wrist, preventing him from withdrawing. His glowing eyes burning with an insanity that was only growing more and more acute.

"Too long! Its been too long!" His hoarse, shrill and hysterical voice proclaimed, drawing back one arm. "I haven't killed anything in so long! It hurts!" There was a loud slurping sound and a long curved almost scimitar like blade sprouted from his elbow, as if forged from the metal of the armour itself rising out of it like the surf on a beach. "I need release! Die for me! DIE!"

Suddenly aware of the peril he was in, Raziel kicked the berserker puppet in the torso with as much force as he could muster. The blow dislodged the metal body from the wraith blade but as soon as the weapon was dragged clear, the torn chest just seemed to turn liquid and recombine itself in its original form before becoming solid again.

Akal came at him, lunging with the blade sprouting from his left arm carving itself through the air. With each swing he came faster, more proficient with the weapon and the abilities of the body. Raziel found himself having to duck and roll several times to avoid having his head cleaved free from his torso.

The blade came spinning around so fast in one attack that he was forced to raise his left arm in defence. Responding at one, the strange device attached to his wrist sprang to life. Three pongs ejected from its centre and between them formed the strange unearthly shield once wielded by Raziel-Divus. The only shield capable of withstanding a hammer blow from the Soul Reaver.

Akal's blade connected with it and then sheared off, breaking like brittle iron into dozens of fragments. Raziel quickly followed up with a swipe of the wraith blade, a deep thrust aimed right at Akal's head. The soul in puppet however saw the attack coming and threw his head to one side to avoid it. Then he lunged forward and slammed his head into Raziel's own.

The blow was savage and rattled the blue wraith from head to toe, sending him staggering back a few paces. Akal brought his right arm up, forming another weapon out of it, the metal becoming like liquid before solidifying into the form of a gleaming spear point. Dazed, Raziel did the only thing he could to defend himself. He unleashed the strongest telekinetic bolt he could manage on short notice directly into the puppet's oncoming face with a loud cracking noise.

The strike did a lot more damage then Raziel had anticipated. Akal's head snapped backwards at the impact. His attack lost momentum, faltered and he collapsed down to one knee. His free hand went immediately to his face, over a large crack he had suffered running across one eye and down the right hand side of the mouth. The injury it wept that inner viscous liquid, dripping like blood around his fingers.

The cracks began to heal and remold much like the chest injury had, but from the reaction to the blow Raziel knew he had found a weak spot. Quickly he moved in, raising the wraith blade as he went for a slashing blow to the head. Akal blocked the motion with his left arm before lashing out with his right, the speak point grazing the blue wraith across the mid section and spilling a great deal of his spiritual energies.

Then suddenly the tip of that spear emitted a powerful blue light, flaring brightly. Then a thick torrent of water burst from it, a spiralling tunnel of surf which carried the surprised Raziel off his feet and across the chamber. With some force he was slammed directly into the far wall with enough force to embed him in it a few inches, a cloud of dust quickly felled by the moisture in the air.

Elemental control, summoning water from the moisture in the air, was a Serioli technique. Razeil recognised it having learned of their abilities from Ajatar. Pulling himself out of the impact hole in the wall, he knew he could not afford to prolong such a battle as this. Akal was a deranged madman and in his present state, his soul bonded and imbued with the essence of an element he was a tremendous danger to everything around him.

As Akal drew his arm back for another attack, Raziel hoisted himself up and rolled forward in a dive. The water spout came, passing directly overhead. He kept low, running as quickly as he could towards his opponent. Akal saw him coming and brought his other arm up, clenching a fist and then throwing the hand forward palm out.

Ice began to form in the air directly before his hand, creating massive icicles which lanced forward like ballista bolts. Raziel dodged and weaves to avoid the impaling missiles, the air turning rigid around them as they passed by. One which came too close he had to defend himself with the shield, bringing it up to block the attack.

Not only did it do so but when the icicle hit the humming shield's surface it broke into dozens of smaller pieces which rebounded and were sent back the way they had come in a swarm. They riddled Akal's puppet body leaving him sprouting ice from nearly every point on himself. Quickly Raziel moved, running in close before Akal had a chance to free himself from the ice.

The Wraith blade slashed repeatedly across the face, slicing deep in, leaving large gash marks which oozed the intensely glowing blue inner substance. Each blow caused Akal to screech in pain, each shriek higher in pitch then the last, before finally he freed himself from the onslaught by kicking Raziel squarely between the legs.

The blow was staggered, forcing Raziel to back off a few paces and this was all the space Akal needed to go on the attack himself again. His spear point lanced forward but Raziel slipped to one side and wrapped his arm about the spear, trapping it in his armpit. Akal raised his free hand quickly, summoning a curving dome of ice over his head to protect himself.

So close to it however Raziel kept firm hold of his enemy and began battering into that ice shield with his free left fist, punching it over and over with increasing force. The blows kept the ice from reforming, each punch causing it to break and shatter that little bit more until finally the entire barrier gave way and collapsed into snow like shavings. Akal recoiled, trying to back off out of reach but with his other arm trapped he couldn't pull away.

Raziel's left hand shot down and grasped his head firmly between his talons. Akal struggled, trying to free himself but it was already too late. With his grip on his head like a vice, Raziel unleashed bolt after bolt of telekinetic force at point blank range into his enemy's face. Fragments of metal went flying in all directions as the repeated blasts broke off more and more of the puppet's face, the viscous glowing liquid leaking out around grasping talons. Raziel kept up the assault, as many bolts as he could discharge before he felt himself so numb repeating it over and over. He kept it up as long as he could.

Finally, Akal lashed out with one hand and grasped Raziel's wrist. He wrenched it away as much as he could and when Raziel was forced to let go, he revealed a devastated hole instead of a face, a few strands of metal frame left to show where eyes and mouth had once been. Thick oozing liquid glowing bright blue was dribbling down over Akal's metal chest.

"Why won't you die?!" His gurgling voice demanded, the kind of sound made when one had a mouth full of water or blood.

"Because I can't." Raziel replied. "Believe me, it's been tried." He wrenched his arm free from his enemy's grip with a sudden twist. "And by far better then the likes of you!" Forming a fist he slammed his left hand into Akal's head, smashing through what remained of his face and deep into the metal skull.

-0-

**"Elezier's repugnant soul had gifted me with the power to channel a soul in and out of a physical object. Finally it proved useful. Wrenching this mad soul from the vessel that gave it one last animation, I rechanneled it to a far more suitable container."**

-0-

Grasping hold of a soul imbued with an element, especially water, was not easy. It wriggled and twisted like a slippery fish in his grasp, refusing to be still, desperately struggling for freedom. But Raziel kept a firm grip and dragged that soul free from the puppet, syphoning it away. The metal body jumped and jerked about wildly, the blue radiance which had filled it flowing away inch by struggling inch.

With one large theatrical flourish, Raziel let the now inert body fall to the ground with a heavy clatter. Holding up his left arm, he watched as the blue liquid fed itself directly into the centre of the shield attached to his wrist. The device hummed and seemed to vibrate as it took in the power, absorbing it, making it it's own.

The mystical barrier it formed went out for a brief moment like a snuffed candle, then flared anew with a powerful blue light. The surface area projected by the wrist device was larger then before, covering Raziel's entire torso and around the outside edge was a ring of water formed from the moisture in the air. Crystals of ice formed, dissolved and reformed around the axis of the barrier. It was as if all the states of water; steam, water and ice were represented in its physical appearance.

Raziel stood there, turning his arm this way and that as he examined the change his shield had undergone, marvelling that such a thing had happened. He hadn't expected a reaction like this when he had channelled the spirit into it, it had just been an instinctive action. The results had caught him totally off-guard.

-0-

**"Like my sword, it seemed my shield was capable of being re-forged with elemental power. The berserker's soul had been fused with the power of Water and I could feel that power resonating inside the ancient device. Perhaps now I had the means to bypass the doorway that had impeded my progress in Fanum-Divus."**

-0-

He wasn't sure what led him to make that leap in logic. Somehow, as he stared at the ebb and flow of the water element within the makeup of his shield, it seemed only natural to make that assumption. It was a gamble to assume that instinct was correct and return to Fanum-Divus but Raziel found himself confident the rewards would be worth the risk.

Dismissing the wraith blade, he reached into the folded pouch where he kept the key given to him and pressed its red jewel. Once more its strange enchantment was invoked and the world around him faded to white, peeling away to leave him suspended in nothing for a moment. Then the new environment formed around him, walls, ceiling and floors sliding into place under and around him.

As he expected he reappeared back where he had left, in the chamber just before the strange enchanted door he had not been able to open before. It seemed the key returned you to the place where you were when you left going both ways. That would certainly prove useful, limiting the amount of backtracking he would be forced to do. Quickly he looked about, making sure he was alone. The last thing he wanted to do was be caught by Hommunculi, the Divus or their Dragon. Thankfully the chamber was as empty as he had left it.

The door before him remained was sealed shut as ever, but for the moment he ignored it, turning to face the two water flows on either side of the room which fed into the pond at the bottom of the stairs. It had not escaped his notice that the barrier protecting the door had been connected to the water in some way.

Raziel raised his left arm up, holding the shield pointing directly at the pond. He could feel the elemental energy humming within it. He called on that energy, commanding it to do his bidding. In response the device on his wrist flared brightly, the prongs that projected the mystical barrier turning faster then they had ever done before. They cast a blur of water and ice about him, showering him with wet and cold flakes.

Down in the pond the water flowing into it froze in place. Not turning to ice, but ceasing to move totally as if time had stopped. This immobility continued even to the water in the two small troths, forcing them to stop dead still. Then the flow reversed, the water traveling out of the pond, back up the troths and vanishing into the two holes in the ceiling.

-0-

**"Unlike the empowerments of the Reaver which were all but uniformly offensive in nature, the shield utilised its enhancements by the manipulation of the world around it. I could control the flow of water, allowing it to move in defiance of gravity if I chose. Exactly how much control I could exact over the element was yet to be fully tested."**

-0-

The door behind the blue wraith gave a low continuous moan as if some pressure had been released. Then with a chorus of clicks and clanks, the many different parts of the door began to slide back. Some moved faster then others, little gaps appearing before larger ones. The façade of the solid piece fell away as it broke into fragments that all slide up, down and around each other until one by one they disappeared into the door frame itself revealing a new hallway beyond.

A short ways beyond the now open door was another, longer flight of stairs leading up for some distance. From the bottom Raziel could not see the top of the stairs, which curved around a corner and out of sight. Cautiously he advanced, casting a glance back over his shoulder occasionally. While here in the city of the enemy, being prudent and watchful had to become second nature to himself.

The stairs curved up around a large central pillar, rising for some considerable distance and lit along the way by large flickering braziers set into the wall. The further he rose, the more Raziel thought he heard faint sounds distant sounds of metal striking metal, the churn of large gears and the hiss of industrial machinery. There was a portion of Fanum-Divus, full of slaves, devoted to the production of weaponry. Was he passing close to it?

When he finally reached the top of the stairs however he found himself in a very different sort of room. It was narrow, perhaps no more then twenty feet across but very long. The far wall vaguely visible in the distance. Chandeliers made of many different parts of various coloured crystals hung from the ceiling at regular intervals, casting dabbled light and inconsistent shadows

Slowly Raziel made his way through, glancing around. Set into the walls at regular intervals were alcoves into which were placed large stone sarcophaguses of various sizes. All of them were elaborately decorated with glyph markings and other imagery, including murals on the wall above depicting various events from the life of the corpse that must lie within. This, Raziel was quick to realise, must be a crypt or tomb for honoured Divus which despite their immortality had fallen.

He passed by many sarcophaguses with names engraved on plagues beneath them that he did not recognise. Haniel-Divus. Nakir-Divus. Remiel-Divus. Pahaliah-Divus. Their murals showed images of a human, two Ancient Vampires and another Human respectively. Then he stopped at the entombment of a name he did recognise. On the plague before quite a large sarcophagus was the name METATRON-DIVUS. Beneath this there was a short passage that read - "Exterminatore eius. Rex Vero desfensorem sui" which Raziel translated as "destroyer of lies, true defender of his King and his God."

The mural above the alcove was a glorious spread depicting the fallen Divus wielding his war hammer, one foot upon the body of a fallen Hylden opponent. Metatron was depicted with full grace, glory and poise, shown in the light from the heavens above. His opponent was a grasping evil twisted thing which was grappling up, not towards his enemy it seemed towards the hammer he wielded as if desperate to hold it.

Raziel glanced around, wondering him the depraved Ambraxas had been entombed here as well after he met his end at the hands of Ewoden. But he could see no sarcophagus marked with the name in his immediate vicinity. But something else caught his attention, a flash of colour on the floor a short distance up the length of the chamber.

As he approached he discerned it for what it was, a mural laid into the floor itself. It was set into a circular frame between two more rows of sarcophaguses and brightly coloured, clearly tended to often to preserve it. Raziel stood on the outside edge of the picture, staring down at it and frowning in displeasure.

The image showed himself, or rather his first incarnation Raziel-Divus. He disliked looking at that image. His human self, a Sarafan butcher, had been bad enough but this was so much worse. It seemed no matter where he turned he was confronted with uncomfortable reminders that his past was a mire of mistakes and regrets.

Raziel-Divus was depicted here standing atop the battlements of what looked like a castle or fort of some kind. His arms and wings were outstretched up towards the sky as tears ran down his face, up towards the sun far above. Raziel frowned even deeper when he realised his mistake. It wasn't a sun, but drawn faintly into the white circle was the symbol that represented the Wheel of Fate itself. It was the symbol of his former master, shining down the light of revelation upon his chosen.

But what drew Raziel's immediate attention was not that, but rather an object which his former self was depicted holding. It was a box of some kind, about as wide and tall as his chest and locked tight with seal of gold on one side. Upon the top of the box was a symbol and much to his surprise, it wasn't the symbol of the wheel of fate again but his own symbol - the Razielim clan symbol. The same symbol which still adorned the drape around his shoulders and neck.

Then Raziel realised his second mistake. It wasn't a box his first incarnation was holding in the picture at all. It only looked that way from a certain angle. When he moved across to the left hand side of the image and saw that one side of the object had a thick ringed spine, he knew what it was. It was a book.

-0-

**"So it would seem Ophiel's hint at the existence of some tome written by my first incarnation was more then just a fabrication. The scene depicted suggested that the book was a repository of celestial knowledge from my former Master and that it held some sort of desperately important secret. This secret was so vital that it had to be protected above all else and at all costs. What could be so imperative that it had been entrusted to the King of the Divus and no one else? And for what purpose?"**

-0-

So many questions to answer. But whatever those answers were, Raziel felt certain now he was indeed being led towards something by Ophiel. But whether this was a trap orchestrated by Asmodeus or a concoction of her own remained to be seen. Whatever the case, the book was clearly a vital artefact to gain possession of. Even if that meant going through all of Fanum-Divus to find it.


	8. Diplomacy

Once again symbols seemed to have an unknown and deeper history. Raziel had seen that somehow, Kain's own imperial symbol had been foreshadowed by the mural representation of the Scion of Balance. Now here was his own clan symbol, depicted in a mural that had to be far older. And yet was far as he was concerned, he had only created that symbol when he first forged the foundations of the Razielim clan.

When Kain had begun his campaign to conquer Nosgoth and the six of his lieutenants had been tasked to create legions of Vampires, each of them had created a flag around which their offspring could rally and each flag had been unique. Could it be, Raziel wondered, that in creating his own symbol he had tapped into some subconscious memory of his first incarnation? If that was true, how many other small and overlooked decisions had he made based on the legacy of preference?

The crypt of the Divus was, when put in comparison with the size of the city itself, fairly small. Few Divus had ever actually died. Their city was all but unassailable by any conceivable threat, and the immortality gifted to them ensured that perishing of old age was a concern for beings of lower stature. Those that did die had been given this space to be laid to rest, sealed up and away from any who did not wish a reminder that death was still one serious injury away.

At the far end of the rectangular room there was no door, but rather a large stained glass window which reached up from near the floor to the ceiling. It was an elaborate piece that depicted the Wheel of Fate symbol shining down its revealing light onto a land blighted and burned by starvation and war. The survivors raising their hands in supplication and reverence to the illuminating light.

A single bolt of telekinetic force sent the glass spinning out in many multi-coloured fragments, giving him an exit from the otherwise sealed tomb. Outside the walls of the buildings were a sheer vertical cliffs of stone and brick which went up and down almost endlessly. Glancing out, Raziel took a moment to survey the layout of what part of the city he could see.

Up above he could see various stretching bridges connecting buildings which seemed, at least to his perspective, upside down and built down from large blocks of stone far above. It was a crisscrossing web of bridges and smaller pathways going in so many complex directions the eye had difficulty following them. Some of the buildings were longer than others, giving the different bridges alternating height.

Below was a far different view. Steam and smoke rose up from comparatively narrow gaps between the buildings, mere alleyways where immense industry and commerce seemed to be going on. Crowds of people were milling around down there, coming in and out of cruder structures made of welded and riveted metal. The sounds of hammers on anvils was a near constant chorus intermixed with shouts and the calls of business. From so far up it was hard to tell exactly who those people were.

From the looks of the walls, Raziel judged that there were enough handholds and graspable places for him to climb. The only question now was whether to go up or down. Both options had their merits and their drawbacks. Going down meant the chance of being seen by so many was great but going up surely meant homunculi guards which would raise the alarm immediately.

Grimly, Raziel climbed out of the window and began to descend. Hand by hand he climbed down the wall, head turned so he could watch the approaching ground. So far it seemed no one had seen him, but he supposed that compared with other distractions he was but a small element; a mere fly on a much larger wall. The smoke rising from various large open pits were molten metal was being extruded also appeared to help mask his descent.

Finally when the drop was feasible he let go his grip and fell the rest of the way down onto a metallic rooftop. His feet made a hollow thudding sound that echoed unnervingly. He crotched low, listening intently for any sign of alarm at the noise. But there was nothing. Once the blue wraith was sure he had gone unnoticed he moved quickly, racing across the rooftops of that settlement within the cracks of a city.

He leapt from roof to roof, vaulting the relatively small distances between each overhang and ducking behind the occasional metal chimney whenever he had to pass by an open area where he might easily be spotted. Fortunately it seemed most attention was being focused either around the pools of molten metal or around smaller areas which seemed to be places of commerce or recreation.

Finally, crouched between two extrusions which served as windows, Raziel was able to get a good look at the people just below. They were Human, with olive almost tanned skin and long blonde almost gold hair with some variation in shade and hue. Their eyes were a near perfect matching yellow and they all wore simple clothes of wool or linen. They all shared one other similar mark. Upon the backs of their necks was the twisted symbol of eternity that Moebius had once carried upon his brow.

-0-

**"The golden haired slave race of Fanum-Divus. Bred from captives taken from the army that Moebius used to decimate the Ancient Vampires, this portion of Humanity had been kept in perpetual servitude here, working the fires and forges of the Divus. Slaves from cradle to grave, never permitted a glimpse of any other existence."**

-0-

Exactly how many slaves Fanum-Divus had toiling in its depths was perhaps a near impossible number to guess. They had been here for century upon century and in that time their numbers would be expanded to accommodate whatever tasks the Divus would have for them. He judged, with a quick glance around, that there were perhaps just over a thousand gathered here and that by no means was the full extent of their numbers.

Some were tending to the pools of molten metal, channelling pipes and troths around to direct the flow one way or another. Others were in huddled conversations with their fellows in out of the way corners and a few off to one side were performing more mundane tasks, such as repairing tools and garments. There were even children here and there, being shown what tasks their parents and caretakers performed and how to do those tasks themselves. Curiously, Raziel noted, the young ones did not have the symbol on the backs of their necks. It could be that such marks were only given to those who came of age.

There was a sudden loud scraping of claws on stone from directly behind him, followed by the intense thud of a landing. Raziel spun about quickly, the wraith blade erupting from his grasp reflexively. Looming over him in the shadows of the rooftops was a large shape with a barrel chest and long arms either side that ended in cruelly curved claws. A lupine head with staring yellow eyes glared at him, lips pulled back over snarling teeth.

Then the moment passed and recognition was made for both sides. Raziel dismissed the wraith blade and stood up to his full height. As he did so, the creature leaned out of the shadows to reveal the feral face of a werewolf. Ewoden's pack, left behind in Fanum-Divus, over which he had been their alpha male, were tolerated as amusing pets. Their kind ran through the back corridors and hidden passageways of Fanum-Divus like rats, taking whatever recruits they needed from the slave race.

"You return." The wolf said in a gravelly voice that was barely Human. Speaking in that form was not easy, and with the way the jaw moved up and down it was almost like he was chewing on the words. "We did not imagine we would ever see you again."

"The surprise is mutual, I assure you." Raziel replied, keeping his voice low as he did not wish to be overheard by those below. The wolf lowered his head so they were at eye level, his long tail swishing out behind him.

"We heard of the death of Ambraxas." He said. "How did he die?" The eagerness in the question, the hunger for an answer, was intense.

"Your leader tore out his heart and ate it." Raziel told him with no little satisfaction at being the bearer of that bit of information.

The werewolf blinked twice and pulled his lips back in what was supposed to be a grin but on a muzzle like that came off more like a grimace. He let out a sign of what could only be malicious glee.

"So the first oath is fulfilled!" He proclaimed with relish.

"I trust that is satisfying." Raziel hoped.

"Immensely so!" The werewolf lashed his tail almost like a canine being given a treat by its master. "Finally; for all the lifes snuffed out in his sick tinkering, for all the suffering we endured at his hands, justice has been visited upon the butcher!"

Ambraxas-Divus had been one Raziel had had no qualms helping to kill. A mutilator of life, he had been responsible for the creation of not only the lycanthropes but a great many other chimeras and unnatural mutants. He had blended and merged many forms of life for no other reason than because he wanted to see what would happen.

"But where is Ewoden? He did not return to us." The werewolf pressed, now with concern of matching intensity.

"He searches for a place for your kind to call home. Which is, as I understand, his second oath." Raziel replied and at this the wolf nodded one, the lupine head bobbing.

"Aye. He remains truthful to his duty then." He said in apparant satisfaction.

"You should know his chances of finding such a haven are slim." The blue wraith felt compelled to add.

"So were his chances of killing Ambraxas, yet you return with news of his victory." The werewolf replied dismissively

"Point taken." Raziel stated sardonically with a raised eyebrow, but then decided to get to a more important issue. "I seek a book of great power in this city, written by its former king. Do you know of it?"

The werewolf rumbled deep in his throat at that, a thoughtful sound. The expression on the lupine face was barely recognisable as puzzlement.

"All books and tomes of the Divus are stored in their great library." He said and pointed with one clawed digit down the length of the slave's alcove towards the massive central pillar of the city itself. Looming up there was a towering gate, visible even from such a distance and framed on either side by two massive statues of winged warriors armed with spears. It seemed separated from the slave level by at least three different smaller gates and staircases. "But it is sealed to all but themselves. You will not gain entry."

"We shall see." Raziel remarked flatly, staring at the gate with a furrowed brow. The wolf snorted then and turned, one arm stretching up to grasp a hand hold on the wall above.

"If your path crosses with Ewoden's again, tell him we await his return and fulfilment of his third oath." He said and then vanished, vaulting up the near vertical surface with ease. A mere few dislodged chips of stone falling from scarping claws as he climbed out of sight and then vanished completely through a gap in the wall Raziel hadn't even noticed.

Getting to that gate was actually not that difficult. The roof tops of the slave dwellings, while hardly substantial, were sufficient enough to supply him with a mostly hidden path almost all the way there. The slaves were all so busy with their day to day activities and toiling that few of them bothered to even glance about. For them their lives of servitude in between the cracks were totally normal.

The stairs leading up towards the gate itself were barred from the slaves by a large grating suspended between two huge stone columns and guarded by a row of the terracotta homunculi. The slaves themselves kept their dwellings well away from that barrier, a low metal wall they had constructed separating them and leaving an empty space of perhaps about hundred feet. A flat expanse of stone where the slaves did not even dare look.

Beyond the grating the steps rose another few hundred feet, intersecting various levels as they went before they finally arrived at the towering gate above. Each level was barred from the others with other grates, sealed and guarded by more homunculi. From the hidden perch of a stack of smoking chimneys above what appeared to be an eatery for the slaves, Raziel watched the position and speculated.

The homunculi were puppets with very little personal intelligence. They required a commander to organise them in order to make them a real threat and even then they relied often on sheer numbers. Those either patrolling or guarding were usually just dolls give a specific set of orders, repeating them until they received new ones and didn't adapt well to new situations.

Raziel counted perhaps thirty five across the length of the complicated staircase, most standing to attention and staring straight ahead like statues. He could perhaps fight that many but it would be a stretch. Plus he ran the risk of one of them raising the alarm, calling the rest of the city down upon him. He shook his head with his eyes squinting in discontent. No, an open assault was simply out of the question.

Stealth did not seem a viable alternative either. The stairs offered no hidden places to conceal himself and the positions of the guards gave them view of every approach. Raiel frowned, correcting himself. All approached, accept one. All of the guards without a single exception were staring straight ahead. None of them were looking up.

A glance around found Raziel what he needed. Another vast column rose up within the slave enclave, towering up towards the descending buildings far above. It was mostly plastered giving it a smooth unyielding surface but on one side the coating that cracked and crumbled, revealing the stone brick beneath. Making sure he was obscured form sight, he made his way there and began to slowly climb.

He did not go up the entire length of the pillar, only a few hundred feet. He wanted to make sure he was way above any possible normal line of sight. Once he had reached a sufficient height he paused, looking down and around to see if this was as high as he needed to go. Nodding once in satisfaction, he pressed both feet against the side of the column and then propelled himself into mid air.

Grasping hold of his wings in that same twisting leap, he spread them out and began to glide forward. The gift of Marduk, the former leader of the Hylden house of Knowledge, had not fully restored his wings but they had strengthened them and given them more body. This didn't allow for flight but far extended his ability to glide, allowing him to traverse distances which before had been impossible.

Sailing overhead, Raziel kept his eye fixed firmly on the homunculi below. His gambit appeared to have paid off. None of them reacted as he flew over them, out of their field of vision. Fixed, unresponsive and rigidly scheduled dolls that they were, they simply did not have the capability to glance up once in a while if they had not been specifically told to.

Once he had cleared the last of them, Raziel let go of his wings and dropped back down to the ground coming down directly before the massive gate. His feet made a loud slap noise against the floor but there was no sign of alarm from the guards at the stairs. They remained as rigid as statues. Quickly the blue wraith moved on up towards the gate to minimise his chances of stimulating them to movement.

The gate itself towered overhead as did the statues on either side. It was a rather plain looking door despite its sheer size, the only decoration upon it being a plaque directly in the centre with the symbol of the Wheel of Fate etched into it. Even the surrounding frame of the gate was pedestrian, with very minimal decorative carving. What did catch Raziel's eye though were the two massive blocks of metal that lanced across the doorway.

The two thick bars slid from holes in the frame to bar the door completely, keeping it shut tight and firmly in place. As long as those bars were in place, there would be no opening that gate. Quickly he began looking around for some sort of lever or system that operated the locking mechanism.

The two large statues were not made of stone but rather metal. They were each worthy of being called a colossus. With one hand they held their held their spears aloft as if to bar the way to anyone who might approach the gate. With the other they placed their palms over their hearts as if humble before a far superior master. Their faces were lowered, eyes closed and mouths pulled down into frowns of discontent. Their looming presence was unique un-nerving and it would not be the first time inanimate statues had come to life to attack him before.

Searching as well he might, Raziel could not find anything to mark a stitch, button and means of opening the gate from the outside. There wasn't even a handle. It seemed the door could only be opened from the outside. Which if all but the Divus were bared from entry did make sense. Finally he was forced to back away from it in defeat, scowling at the immovable barrier placed before him.

-0-

**"Sealed fast by titanic locks I did not currently have the means to dispel, this door was immoveable. If the book of my first incarnation lay beyond it was, for the time being, out of my reach."**

-0-

With no other option, his way barred for now, he sullenly reached for Ophiel's key and activated it. It was not wise to linger here with his way barred, especially with guards so close by. It was wiser to vacate the city until he had some method to opening this door.

The key's power enveloped him at once and the environment of Fanum-Divus faded out, peeling away bit by bit and leaving him suspended in total oblivion. Then once more he was back in the darkness of the underground, Serioli caverns right where he had stood after defeating Akal.

Retracing his steps back up through the collapsed caverns and ruins, Raziel emerged back outside of Dark Eden. Night was falling now and the perpetual darkness under which Nosgoth lay great more intense. Strange though. He could not have been gone that long surely? No more then two hours had gone by at the very least.

He had been away from the others for some time now in any event. It would be best if he met up with them again and discussed what he had learned. Perhaps they might have some insight on questions and problems he had discovered.

They were not hard to find. Someone had lit a camp fire in a clearing of stone and gravel halfway down the valley in the shelter of towering cliff, away from the creeping black weeds. It shone brightly in the darkness, a bright bacon which drew the eyes instantly. Quickly Raziel made toward it, wondering briefly about everything he had seen so far and how best to formulate the questions he needed to ask. Or even what questions to ask in the first place.

Coming closer he could a figure sat leaning against a rock and recognised Umah's armoured body. She sat closest to the fire despite the fact its warmth was of no benefit to her. There was a shadow off to one side which was either Tiamatu or Ajatar for it had wings. Just as he was about to step into the firelight, he heard raised voices and paused.

"And what would you have done in my place then?" Ajatar was asking, obviously carrying on a conversation. Her tone was frustrated and angry. "Suggest simply asking them to give up generations of ingrained hatred with nothing in exchange?" He could see her gesturing with both arms in the light of the fire and even from a distance he could hear the rustle her wings made when she shook them in irritation.

"My discovery is not YOUR bargaining chip to use or withhold!" Tiamatu's voice replied and the Hylden woman sounded even more angry, her voice hoarse as if the two of them had been arguing for a while now. She came around from behind a large rock and he could see the two winged women facing each other, glaring with resentment and bitterness sparking between them.

"If I wish to bring it to my people, then I will." The Hylden woman carried on, her pale deceivingly blank eyes narrowed in anger and raising a finger to point at Ajatar. "At any time I choose, in any manner I choose! You, nor any other Vampire, have any say in that!"

"We have a right to determine what is best for our own survival!" Ajatar stated flatly, clenching her talons into fists either side of her. "Damn it Tiamatu, this conflict between your race and mine has to end! For all of us! You must know that! We can't keep throwing ourselves into century upon century of genocide warfare! We'll just destroy each other!"

Tiamatu tucked her wings behind herself so tightly it almost seemed like they weren't even there. Her face was twisted with fury.

"We didn't start that war." She said.

"Who started it doesn't matter anymore!" Ajatar snapped.

"Of course it matters!" The Hylden woman almost roared back, making the grandmaster of the Serioli flinch at the volume of it. "I grew up in the Demon Realm. I only set foot on Nosgoth for the first time less then a year ago. It's so very different here. Even in its state of decay, Nosgoth is beautiful." Her gaze met the Vampire woman's eyes in a very direct and almost savage stare. "And it was your kind that denied me my childhood in such a place. I can't forget that. None of my generation will forget that."

Ajatar stood there for a quiet moment, lips pursed in her dismayed reaction. It lasted only a moment though before anger took over once more and she let out a growl.

"And so what?" She demanded. "What sort of reparations are we supposed to give your people before your grudge is satisfied? Before we can simply stop killing each other, let alone ally against a common enemy?" This time is was Tiamatu's turn to appear uncertain, one eye twitching. "Do YOU want us all to die too?!"

"Don't be stupid!"

"Then what am I supposed to do then?!"

"I don't care! But I won't let you use my mentor's life long dream like some sort of diplomatic ploy!"

"Damn you! I need something to work with or...!"

"ENOUGH!" Umah's voice cracked like a whip, silencing them both. The two of them froze in mid argument, staring at her. Her armoured body creaking slightly she got to her feet and stared back at them coldly, even with the lack of physical expression she conveyed a wealth of disapproval.

"The two of you are arguing in circles." She said in a very calm and controlled manner. "Any logical points one might make are ignored by the other in anger."

Ajatar drew in a deep breath then then half turned to look into the fire. Her wings curved to press down upon her shoulders.

"I won't apologise for suggesting what might be our best option for peace." She said in a deliberately neutral voice. Tiamatu did not reply and instead turned her head away.

"I'm no stranger to doing what you think is necessary." Umah said into the silence that followed and banged one fist on her chest plate. "It's how I ended up with this body in the first place." She looked then back and forth between them. "But I learned you can't just take it upon yourself to do such things without explanation and proper preparation. People will misunderstand you, will resent you and there will be consequences for it."

Ajatar kicked some stones closer to the fire with her left foot, looking back over her shoulder at the armoured figure and then past her to Tiamatu who had sat down next to a rock with her knees drawn up.

"Something precious could be lost." Umah added in a far more gentle voice. Timatu shot a glance her way.

"If it hasn't already." She said dimly.

"Has it?" Ajatar asked and there was a strange sort of ache in her voice that Raziel found puzzling.

"I'll need to do some experiments and evaluations to see." Tiamatu replied, leaning back against the rock.

"Let me know the outcome."

"You'll be the first I inform."

"Good."

"Fine."

It was about now the blue wraith chose to interject himself, stepping fully into the light of the fire. "I trust I'm not interrupting?" He began, trying to keep the question as neutral as he could. He did not wish to be accused of eavesdropping. All three of them started in surprise, turning sharply to face him. Tiamatu and Ajatar had startled, even embarrassed looks on their faces.

Umah began toward him.

"Raziel! Where have you been?" She asked with some annoyance. "You've been gone half the night!" Raziel blinked at this intelligence

"Half the night?" He repeated in disbelief. "I was barely away two hours."

"You've been missing for at least six!" Umah informed him quite firmly.

-0-

**"So Ophiel's key was not perfect. Whenever it returned me from Fanum-Divus to the regular time flow, a time dilation must occur. I would have to keep that in mind if I continued to use it."**

-0-

Fanum-Divus existed outside the regular flow of time. One could enter it from one era and emerge in another, past or future. Perhaps when using the keys there was some technique that when performed took the performer to the precise moment in space and time that he desired, but ignorant of that hypothetical technique as he was he was at the mercy of the device's whims.

"I must have lost track of time." He said to cover his momentary confusion. Umah grunted in annoyance and poked him in the chest.

"That's not a luxury we can afford to loose right now." She reminded him.

"No, no its not." He agreed placating. Umah looked him in the face for a moment and then crossed her arms over her chest with the clank of metal on metal.

"Did you discover anything of worth?" She asked finally.

More then happy to change the subject he related to them all what he had discovered beneath the ruins of Dark Eden, the hidden stairway and the caverns far below. He decided however to keep his visit to Fanum-Divus and his quest for the seemingly important book to himself, at least for the moment. It was something he wanted to acquire more details of before he spoke of it. Although if Janos had been there, he might well have gone to him for information. Janos' knowledge of the Wheel of Fate religion, especially its early days, would have been useful.

"Yes, I know of such things." Ajatar said grimly when he spoke of that strange pool of elemental force he had discovered, the substance that animated the puppet Akal had occupied. She knitted her talons before her face, resting her chin on them as her eyes glinted in the firelight. Everyone looked her way as she continued. "Ukko distilled the elements into such pools, allowing him to condense the essence of the elemental power into a physical form and even bind it to the energy of a specific soul. Usually from condemned prisoners." She glanced off to one side towards the flames. "Or volunteers."

Tiamatu blinked, her face contorting in baffled confusion.

"Who would volunteer for such a process?" She asked incredulously, perplexed and somewhat appalled. Ajatar kept her eyes on the fire.

"Those with life threatening injuries." She replied softly. "Those with illnesses for which there was no cure. Sometimes healthy ones when the need for advancement was paramount in the war." She glanced back and a little smile tugged the corner of her lips. "Surely you're not surprised by the fortitude of those who feel justified in a sacrifice for the sake of knowledge."

Tiamatu rolled her blank eyes and looked off.

"Oh now you're trying to flatter me." She scoffed.

"A little diplomacy never hurts." Ajatar stated, still smiling.

"I did not find any other way through the chamber I found to any other rooms." Raziel said, breaking into the discussion again. "Most of the other hallways had collapsed." Ajatar looked back at him, her smile widening all the more

"You're fortunate then that while you were gone, I did some searching of my own." She said and stood up. "Come, we've wasted enough time sitting around."

After putting out the fire they moved out together, Ajatar taking the lead. She led them west across the valley, towards the steep foothills that rose sharply up into cliff like mountains. Even in the dark she was sure of her path and guided them on towards a jagged crevice of rock which from below looked very much like broken teeth in a shattered jawbone.

Once she was there, she paused to let the rest of them catch up before she pointed in amongst the rocks. Hidden from view was a gap in the earth, a narrow opening which in the darkness of the night was a line of utter impenetrable black. Carefully Ajatar stepped over the roses and then began to climb down into that crack.

"Watch your step. The ground is very steep here." She said back over her shoulder to them before she disappeared. Umah and Raziel exchanged a puzzled look before they started forward with a confused Tiamatu right behind them.

The crevice was not a sheer drop as, much to Raziel's surprise, just inside he found his feet settling onto stairs. They were crude stairs made of squared off slate but they were stairs none the less. Keeping his left hand on the side of the rock wall he flourished his right hand, summoning the wraith blade to push back the darkness and illuminate the way again.

Ajatar was a few steps below, looking up to see them following her. She gave the wraith blade a curious look but said nothing of it, guiding them all further down the stairs and into the earth. Down they went and as they descended Raziel glanced about, seeing that the tunnel they had entered had a very tall ceiling what despite centuries of erosion showed signed of having been dug out.

"You seem to know your way very well." He remarked to Ajatar, his voice echoing several times down the cavern passage.

"I've been here before." The grandmaster of the Serioli admitted openly as all they suddenly came to the bottom of the stairs. "In point of fact, every Ancient Vampire has been here for at least one time in their lives." She paused then and looked up and as Raziel followed her gaze, holding the wraith blade forward, there stood before them a large doorway set into the rock. With a sad little smile, Ajatar stepped through it and gestured out wide with both arms.

"Welcome to the Rookery." She said, bidding them to enter.

The chamber beyond was a large open space, expansive for an underground area. Large pillars made of natural stone supported the roof laid out in a hexagon pattern. Each of the pillars had ledges built into them at various points along their length, large enough to support a man's weight. Large terraces ran around its edge, those towards the bottom wider then those toward the top and each of them had built into them what could only be called buildings or even houses. Doorways led into hidden interiors and wide circular windows opened out at regular intervals.

Down below through a gap in the rock an underground stream bubbled and ran, pouring into a convenient pool before it poured out into another crack leading to an even deeper abyss. Mushrooms and fungi of various sizes, shapes and colours sprouted here and there in various protected corners. Some of them gave off a faint green luminescence which attracted a species of deep dwelling insect to buzz around them.

"What...is this place?" Umah asked, standing to Raziel's left and looking around. Her own glow helped to push back the darkness of the underground. Ajatar went up to the edge of the terrace upon which they had emerged and looked down. A flight of stairs lead down towards the bottom with a stop at each terrace.

"The war lasted a thousand years. It raged across all of Nosgoth. No city or fortress was truly safe. We needed a secure and hidden place to protect and raise our young." She said in the quiet tone of one lost in memory. "This is that place."

The place was crude in comparison to other Ancient Vampire sites, at least to Raziel's eye, but it radiated a sense of peace and unsoiled innocence. Timatu stared around in quiet contemplation, her brow furrowed.

"You were born here?" She asked. Ajatar nodded.

"We all were. Myself, Janos, even Ba'al Zebur and the first Circle of Nine." She let out a little amused chuckle and pointed down to a set of buildings off to the left hand side that were ringed in a circle. "Down there, that is where I was raised." The smile on her face was radiant. "It had a small garden where we played and were taught how to fly and a schoolhouse where we learned how to read, write and then how to use a weapon." She faltered then, hesitating with her arm lowering itself. Her face clouded with wry amusement and bitterness.

"It's ironic really." She mused out load, dropping her arm to her sides. "The Serioli were hated and despised for not following the Wheel of Fate and its dictates. They only tolerated us in war because they couldn't do without our talents. But we were still trusted enough to be the vanguards of generations of children."

Tiamatu, however, made a little snort.

"You think that's ironic?" She asked. "The Hylden too feared for their offspring, so they put them in the one place they thought they would be safe and protected. The Demon Realm itself."

"Which made it easier for you all to be banished there." Umah concluded for her. Timatu clicked her fingers.

"Now THAT is irony." She said almost triumphantly.

"Ladies, priorities please." Raziel told them all, one hand on his hip as he gave them a despairing sidelong look. "We can have a contest of ironies some other time."


	9. Earth

Moving down the steps set into the terraced underground cavern, Ajatar went straight to the building she had pointed out to them. She stopped by the large oval shaped entrance for a moment, glancing about herself with a bemused smile before stepping inside. The others followed her, glancing around at the underground nursery and the abandoned buildings set into it.

Everything about this place had a hunched quality to it, with hardly any open space wasted where it wasn't absolutley necessary. Individual buildings were seperate only by thin walls with towers rising from inadventant spots with ledges that could by reached by those gifted with flight. Lots of graspable platforms and raised areas from which to glide and soar. To Raziel's eye this rookery had been designed with the physical training of powered flight in mind.

Inside, the small building Ajatar had entered was perfectly round with a low ceiling, from which hung a rusty ring of metal which might once have held candles or some other lighting implement. Narrow doors led off this central room into what looked like barracks, gaps in the wall where beds of straw had been reduced over the centuries to piles of grey brittle wisps and dust.

"Yes, yes..." Ajatar said almost to herself, staring into one of these side rooms and patting the doorframe fondly. "Right here." She pointed in. "That was my room. Well, our room. I shared it with a dozen other children." Staring past her, Raziel could see another collection of gaps along the walls narrow corridor. It had the apperance of chambers in an ants' nest, where larvae gestated.

Tiamatu frowned as she inspected the dwelling, face creased in her attempt to grasp the realities of day to day Vampire life.

"A dozen children in so small a space?" The Hylden woman asked in a perplexed voice. Ajatar nodded, still smiling.

"We had to make do with what we had." She said, before turning and pointing to the centre of the main room. "Over there we learned the basics in combat. We were handed a weapon and told to fight. If we didn't learn our skills well enough we wouldn't be fed that day." She said it so causually that everyone else gave her a confused or stunned look.

Raziel looked back and forth a moment between the small dwellings and the room, his eyes narrowing in a sad sort of disapproval.

"They were training you to be soldiers from the day you were born." He remarked. Ajatar nodded and her smile faded a little.

"A thousand year of war." She began with a shrug. "One generation after another born for the sole person of fighting."

"And dying." Umah added bleakly.

"And killing." Tiamatu put in with a grim tone in her voice. Ajatar paused for a long silent moment before she sighed and let her shoulder slump.

"Yes, killing." She agreed, turning to face them. Her expression was one of sad regret and bitter acceptance of an unpleasant truth. "We were often shown the anatomy of a Hylden and educated meticuously in where the more vulnerable spots were." She gave Tiamatu a sidelong look. "And you?"

The Hylden woman hesitated at being asked and turned her face away at first, her blank eyes troubled.

"I was raised to the House of Knowledge specifically." She said but then admitted in a low voice, "But basic training did include lectures on how best to kill a Vampire."

Umah shook her helm head in some despair.

"Hatred instilled from the cradle." She observed darkly. Ajtar nodded in agreement, albeit reluctantly.

"Suddenly this place seems far less innocent and homely, doesn't it?" The grandmaster of the Serioli asked rhetorically, her voice sad as having to face the reality behind rose tinted memories of childhood.

"It's a hole in the ground, not much more." Raziel remarked flatly, going to the door.

"And it doesn't smell very good." Taimatu added, joining him. Ajatar took one last look around the building, her expression turning neutral and her nose wrinkling.

"No, no it doesn't." She agreed and followed them out, slowly turning her back on the quiet, preserved scene that had once been the scene of her earliest years. Outside, Tiamatu paused and glanced off to one side.

"Although those mushrooms might be worth studying when I have leisure." She said almost apeasingly, looking at a cluster of the luminous growths which bunched in groups in the corners all around them. "I don't believe I've seen this particular fungus before." Somehow this brought a new smile to Ajatar's face and although neither of the pair looked at each other, Raziel felt a softening of the tension that had been between them since the argument he had overheard earlier.

The Serioli grandmaster walked off a short way until she came to a large circular stone platform about ten feet across, set level with the ground. Engraved upon it in what was by now a dulled relief was the symbol of spirit Raziel had seen many a time before, especially in the forge in the old Vampire citadel.

"I was hand picked by Ukko to join the Serioli at the age of ten." Ajatar said, stepping up onto it. She tapped her foot several times upon the stone. "In fact I was standing right here when he did. He personally trained me to master and understand the elemental arts and control the energies which feed them."

"To be his successor?" Umah asked, cocking her metal hips to one side. Ajatar shook her head.

"Not at first. That came later." She replied but then paused thoughtfully, her crow creased in a contemplative frown. "But when he did name me for the position, he told me that upon my accension to the rank, there was a door that I was never to open. A sealed barrier he had personally erected." She turned then and pointed off to her left, towards a section of seemingly unmarked cavern wall. "That barrier."

Raziel frowned. He did not at first see what she was refered to but as he approached it, holding the wraith blade forever like a lanturn he noticed that a section of the wall was somewhat lighter then the surrounding rock. Closer inspection revealed a small carved point about chest high set within that spot, beautifully carved star shaped obsidian plaque with a diamond shaped recess set in the direct centre of it. Despite the odd angles and decoration it looked very much like a key hole.

"Well, not quite never to open." Ajatar continued as they all gathered before the hidden and throughly sealed doorway. "He told me that I was not to open it until, in his words, 'Nosgoth withered and died'." She shook her head somewhat ruefully. "At the time I took that to mean forever."

"I'd certainly say the world has withered." Umah remarked in a grim but jovial sort of way, hands on her hips.

"But has it died?" Tiamatu asked, an eyebrow raised. Ajatar shrugged and reached up, slowly taking off the silver circlet that she had worn across her brow.

"Close enough, I think." She replied and with a soft 'click' she detached the central deep rose gemstone from the decorative piece. The gem glistened in the light of the wraith blade and Raziel wondered if it were a type of rose quartz. With the jewel in hand Ajatar walked straight up to the door and pressed it into the diamond shaped hole. It went home snugly, fitting perfectly. There was a click and then from deep within the rock there was a decidedly far louder 'thunk' noise.

A low vibration ran through the floor beneath their feet and somehow Raziel got the impression of hidden mechanisms churning, protesting from sitting so long within use. The rock door pulled back sharply, dislodging centuries of dust in a cloud, before it ground its way up into the cieling and out of the way to reveal what lay beyond.

"By the Keeper!" Tiamatu gasped, pulling back with one hand going to her mouth in startled astonishment. One look had Raziel backing off a step himself, raising the wraith blade defensivly up in instinct.

Looming in the revealed passage was a massive set of jaws large enough to snap half a dozen men in two with one snap. It was a maw that towered over them and gaped so wide that it filled the entire passage and was lined on all sides by rows of sharp serrated teeth. Each tooth was about a foot long or more. For a terror filled moment as he gazed into those jaws, fear ran through Raziel that the Divus' beast had found them.

Then, when the thing did not move, he finally percieved what he was looking at. The jaws before him were bleached white and inert. They were bones. Titantic bones, but bones all the same.

"A Dragon's skull! Intact?!" Tiamatu cried and stepped forward, laying her hands across the oddly textured surface of the thing. "It's a marvellous specimen! Even the fossil isn't as well preserved as this!"

Now Raziel saw that it was indeed a skull, a skull larger then any animal he had ever seen, larger even then the skull of a whale which he had once witnessed washed up on the shore during Kain's unquestioned rule. The extent of the skull itself was mostly hidden in the shadows but the mass of it filled the passage so much that the only way through was to walk through the jaws to a hole in the back of the cranium.

"Dragon?" Umah repeated in a tone of incredulousl disblief, looking back and forth between Tiamatu and the gaping maw as the Hylden woman explored through the mouth running her hands lightly over the teeth. "You mean to tell me Dragons are real?!"

"Very much so." Tiamatu replied without turning around, her attention completly on their find and her voice quivering with raptured awe. "Or they were, once. They went extinct long before the advent of any homonid race."

Umah looked as if she were going to say something more to this but then turned her back and walked off a short distance, one hand to the top of the helmet that was her head.

"I've seen stranger things. Why am I surprised by this?" She was heard to mutter to herself, pacing back and forth.

Ajatar however had stood there simply staring at the massive skull the moment it was revealed. Her face was creased in puzzlement, lips gently parted. Slowly she moved over and placed her hand against what would once have been the creature's snout. Her brow furrowed even more in confusion.

"There's nothing..." She began in a slow voice. Tiamatu turned at her words and looked up at the Ancient Vampire.

"What?"

"Can't you feel it?" Ajatar asked, running her hand back and forth across the skull until she arrived at the empty left eye socket. "There's nothing here. No resonance, no sense of power." She looked down through the socket at the Hylden woman, still croutched inside the mouth. "The fossil you showed me in Avernus was radiating elemental force like it was still alive." She tapped the skull with her knuckle, producing a hollow thunk noise. "This thing is just...bone. Dead."

Tiamatu glanced around at the mouth she was in with a new confusion, as if she were seeing it again for the first time. Her expression rapidly moving from dismay to bewilderment.

"Are you sure?" She asked. Ajatar nodded firmly, moving around to the other eye socket as if inspecting the skull from different angles.

"Certain."

"That shouldn't be possible." Tiamatu stood up, the creatures mouth being large enough for her to do so without banging her head on its roof. Ajatar glanced up across the skull towards the largre sweeping crest which ran flush to the roof of the passageway.

"I feel as if it once had force but it's been... drained."

"Taken?" The Hylden woman asked quickly.

"Siphoned off." Ajatar suggested but she still looked very bewildered, frowning as she tried to work out the mystery before them.

"This doesn't make sense." Tiamatu muttered.

Raziel stepped forward, gingerly moving over the rows of teeth barring his way.

"Ladies, we have other priorities." He reminded them but Ajatar shook her head firmly in denial.

"For the moment, no we don't." She replied and guestured towards the cracked hole leading to the dark passage beyond. "The two of you go on ahead. We will catch up. I fear this is a mystery neither of us can put aside."

Umah and Raziel exchanged a look. It was clear that both Ajatar and Tiamatu were so distracted by their discovery they weren't going to be dissuaded until they had satisfied their curiosity. Forced to go on, the two of them moved past them through the skull and into the darkness beyond.

"Did you know of this creature?" Umah asked, as Raziel led the way with the wraith blade's light illuminating their path. The pasage they were moving down was very much in style like those ruins he had discovered beneath Dark Eden itself, clearly Ancient Vampire architecture but of early Serioli design. Here and there were various fragments of bone, some the size of a man's chest and others smaller than a finger. It seemed like the skull they had discovered, as well as other pieces of the beasts skeleton, had been dragged back and forth fragmenting as they went.

"I had some knowledge of the existance of the species, yes." Raziel admitted, albiet neglecting to mention that his knowledge was less than an hour old. He wondered what he ought to make of the revealed secret, a species of great power beyond even the Vampires and Hylden. Strangely he found himself thinking of it in far more practical terms, as if he were only concerned with what this could mean for their present situation rather than the implications of myth made real.

If the Divus had somehow resurrected or recruited a Dragon, perhaps the last of its kind, then they were all in deadly peril. Especially if the Dragons were as powerful as Ajatar seemed to be suggesting.

"Does Kain?" Umah's next question went right to the point of the matter and his trail of thought. Raziel paused and then looked back at her.

"What Kain knows or even what he thinks he knows is something even I can't fathom sometimes." He said, but then added a little more jovially. "I would have thought you knew him better." Umah seemed taken aback by the suggestion.

"Me?" She sounded actually surprised.

"You knew him before I did." Raziel explained.

"You knew him for longer then I did." She retorted. He just shook his head at that.

"As an Emperor, a Master and a God." He explained wryly. "Then later as an enemy or ambitious manipulator. Did I know him as he really was? I'm not conceited enough to suspect that I do."

Umah paused to consider his words, crossing her arms over her belly and idly drumming her metal fingers across the top of Ashar's helmet on her waist. In the light of the wraith blade her armor body gleamed in outline.

"I think his dominion of Nosgoth changed him." She remarked observationally."In some ways."

"For the worse?" Raziel asked, amused.

"Better and worse are relative." She replied and began to pace. He had noticed she did that when she was thinking deeply or aggitated. It was a similar habit to how Ajatar fluttered her wings. "The Kain I knew was ambitious, driven, passionate, so focused on his goals that he was blind to almost everything else and he put every ounce of strength and will into everything he did. Attractive qualities to be sure."

"But taken too far?" The wraith guessed, watching her as she moved back and forth. Umah paused in her pacing and gave him a sidelong look.

"As I said...blind to almost everything else. He could not see the forest for the trees. The Kain I've been reintroduced to has learned his lessons. But I think he has a new problem."

"And what is that?" Raziel asked, his head tilted slightly to one side.

"Before he could not see the forest for the trees. Now, he can not see the trees for the forest." Her statement caused him to blink and look at her with a questioning expression.

"I... do not understand." He admitted in confusion. Umah chuckled slightly and waved him off with one hand.

"Don't ponder too much on it. It's a problem I will deal with myself." She told him but then added in a slight undertone. "But for that I need a proper body." She held her metal hand up before her face and curled and uncurled the fingers over and over, making a collection of squeeks and taps. Her desire to be returned to a normal body was something he could empathise with but he did not dare mention her chances were slim. Malek of the Sarafan, condemned to a similiar fate, had had centuries to search for a remedy and found nothing.

"Before, you said your own form was not of your choosing." She began suddenly, turning back to him. Raziel snorted contempteously.

"Hardly."

"But you have physical form independant of a vessel like this armor." She pressed him, moving closer. "How?"

Trying to explain the methods by which he traveled back and forth between the physical world and the spectral realm, to one who had never experienced it before themselves, was not an easy thing to do. In addition his execution and resurrection was not a subject he really wished to bring up in causual debate. So he tried, as best he could, to explain the mechanics behind physical manifestation.

"Gathering matter?" Umah repeated as he went on, still baffled. He struggled for a moment to find the right words to try and get over the difficult concept.

"I suspect Ajatar could explain this better." He admitted a little dimly. "But everything is made up of the same small pieces. When I take physical form I pull those small pieces from all around me and melded them together to form my body." Then he added a little reluctantly. "When I inhabit a corpse I can rearrange the pieces within that corpse to resemble this form." Explaining his present method of going back and forth between the realms after he had been denied the conduits was nothing short of embarrasing.

"But not how you used to look?" She guessed. At that he had to roll his eyes.

"Believe me, I HAVE tried." He admitted.

Umah went silent again to consider, the chin of her helmet's faceplate rested on the top of her chestplate. She was still looking at her outstretched hand, idly turning it around to study it from different perspectives.

"And this armor, when I inhabited it, changed its physical form to resemble my old body. At least superficially." She remarked, still deep in thought. "As did those all those others freed from the Nexus Stone." Glancing down she looked at Ashar's helmet, which did indeed appear warped and changed to better resemble a Hylden face then a standard Sarafan helm.

"A similar process took place, I think." Raziel was forced to agree with a nod of his head. Umah made a contemplate hum and brought both her hands up and together in front of her, fingertips pressing against each other.

"Then perhaps I could ..." She began. Seeing where her train of thought was leading her, Raziel reached out quickly and took hold of her shoulder quite firmly.

"Too dangerous." He told her as quickly and as sharply as he dared as she stared at him. "You could risk loosing hold on your vessel and dissipating completely. I would not hazard tampering without more experience and knowledge on the subject."

Umah's metal body tensed up as if she were about to argue, but then their eyes met and he held her gaze. Finally she relaxed into a slump, her arms dropping to her sides.

"No, you're right... it's too precarious and we don't have time." She conceded, although not without a tinge of resentment in her voice. Then without another moment's hesitation she strode off down the passage, as if determined to occupy herself with other tasks before she dwelt too much on disapointment. Raziel watched her venture beyond the light of the wraith blade before he added to himself with a small chuckle;

"Still, its something to think about."

It wasn't long before the passage widened out into a long hallway, slender stone pillars running either side from floor to ceiling. The ceiling was arched with beams crisscrossing back and forth between the top of each pillar, each decorated with elaborate carvings and symbols. Murals once more began to decorate the walls, some still bright and colourful and others dulled with age or damaged over the years.

Raziel looked them over as the two of them walked by. Most of them did not seem too important, depicting scenes of Ancient Vampires practising and mastering various forms of elemental control. Some were holding out their hands to the sky, causing it to rain from black clouds. Others were ripping the earth asunder to push mountains up out of nothing. Fire was boiled out of the air to set forests ablaze and typhoons fanned the flames into raging infernos.

Raziel suspected these to be exaggerations of the ultimate expressions of the various elements used by the Serioli. If they weren't, then the devestation the Serioli unleashed in the ancient war with the Hylden was truly awe inspiring.

One mural however caught his eye immediatly and made him stop to stare at it. It was a long stretching design that covered at least four panels of one wall and was tall enough to run from ceiling to floor. It depicted the sky above the curving disc of the horizon, full of roiling stormy clouds with lightning bolts lancing down to scare the earth. Rising and falling, dipping and diving like an impossible long shape through those clouds was a form Raziel recognised.

A long pale blue form with a white underbelly, large whale like fins sprouting at regular intervals along the miles and miles of its length. The head was lost somewhere in the clouds but Raziel could see where it was by the glow of five eyes depicted from somewhere within the darkest cover, glaring out at the viewer of the image as if judging them.

Strange, he thought to himself frowning. If the Keeper had indeed ignored the calls of the Ancients then why was he depicted so here? In the full splendor of nature's might? The heart of the storm? It was hard to tell whether he was being shown in a malevolent or a benevolent way here, only that he was immensly powerful and to be respected.

Turning, he looked across the hall to the opposite wall. As he had half suspected there was another mural of matching length and width. It had suffered some damage, with fragments of plaster having crumbled away, but he made out the outline of the depicted image. A writhing, hideous mass of ropey tentacle like lengths which spiraled down towards a single point of blue in an ocean of darkness. Across this hideous mass were points of green and blue, glinting in the light, like clusters of eyes. The entire image, or at least what he could see of it, gave the impression of a massive hand descending upon an unsuspecting world.

Depictions of the Elder as he really was rather than just the Wheel of Fate symbol were rare as few had ever seen him, or even could see him. To find a depiction of him here, in ruins belonging to the only Ancient Vampires to reject his worship was even more puzzling. What did it mean to find these two visitors from beyond the stars and time itself shown here like this? Did the Serioli revere these two in any way, or were these mere artistic depictions of what were percieved as forces of nature?

And just how had the artist of either or both of these images known what the entities depicted actually looked like?

Coming to the far end of the hall, the two of them stood before a large stone door. Engraved over it was a symbol Raziel had seen before, the elemental icon representing Earth; a central circle with a large half circle beneath and smaller circles dotted above in three locations. Directly below the image was yet another hand press, curving shapes in general outline depicting the shape of an ancient Vampire's hand.

Pressing his hand against it, Raziel watched as the door swung away to reveal another dome chamber. He stood there staring in with no surprise at a replica of the sealed room where he had fought with the spirit of the demanded beserker Akal.

-0-

**"Once again I beheld a soul forging chamber, this time sealed with the elemental symbol of Earth. I did not know what manner of soul Ukko had forged and held captive here, but it was prudent to suspect the worst."**

-0-

In the centre of the round chamber was another complex pendlum with the large disc attached to its bottom end, once again sure to contain another metal puppet. Directly before was a pool of the strange, glowing viceous, bubbling liquid he had seen before. Only this time, instead of being a harsh blue colour, the light it gave off as a steady but soft gold. All the metal in the room gleamed brightly and the shadows cast were less distinct.

Umah advanced into the room, looking around herself, her own spirtual glow quite overshadowed by the golden light. Eventually she was drawn to the pool, pausing by its edge and staring down into the sluggishly roiling substance.

"Is this one of those pools you described to us?" She asked without looking up. Raziel came up to her side and looked down at it with her.

"Yes." He confirmed with a nod.

"A soul, visible as a liquid." She mused, clearly impressed. Absently her hand moved out as if she intended to reach down and touch it, but then she quickly drew her hand back as if she realised what a mistake that would be.

"You're going to release the spirit, aren't you?"

Raziel turned his head to look up at the far end of the chamber from the door through which had entered. Unlike the previous soul forge he had come across, this one had another exit in the form of a metallic door set into a stone frame. Four large bars of metal barred it and kept it tightly shut. The symbol for the element of Earth stood out, embossed on that sealed door almost challengingly. It was the only way forward he had seen as the passage they had left had had no side exits or other doors.

"I fear I must if we're to progress." He remarked with a little shake of his head, glancing down at the aparatus set into the stone ringed surface surrounding the pool. To his eye it looked indentical to those in the last chamber. He saw the release switch, the slab with the hand print upon it, right where it had been before.

Coming over to it, he paused with his hand raised and gave Umah a direct look.

"Be prepared for battle." He told her and she nodded in understanding, watching with rapt attention as to what was about to happen.

The blue wraith hesitated for only a moment, then he depressed the panel and it sank down into the ancient machinery with a loud thunk. A vibration ran through the floor instantly, the pedulum lowering until it hung just over the golden pool. Then it split open, revealing inside another of the dangling metallic puppets shaped with the rudimentary Ancient Vampire features.

In the pool below, the golden liquid boiled and bubbled as if heated. Tentacles formed out of its gelatious mass, lashing around wildly before rising up like a colony of luminous insects. Seizing upon the puppet it fed itself into the gaps in the dangling frame. The puppet jerked and twitched on its harness before animating with new, vigorous life.

Then it leapt forward, doing an acrobatic somersault before landing on both feet with arms outstretched. The eyes opened, the golden glow coming from within and the face animating itself with personality and intelligent life. Akal had been deranged, a beserking murderer denied a kill for so long all semblence of rationality and logic had fled. The face animated here was far more contemplative and inquisitive, if somewhat startled.

"Am I dreaming again?" It asked into the silence perhaps a minute after it had emerged. Slowly it lowered its hands and looked at them. "I do seem to be dreaming again. This is too strange not to be a dream."

Slowly it turned its head from side to side, looking slowly around the chamber. For the moment it seemed not to have noticed either of them, caught up in its own inner thoughts.

"How many years has it been since I was imprisoned here?" It asked as if musing to itself, tapping one foot. "I tried to keep count but I lost it somewhere around three thousand." It paused again. "Or was it four?" The articulate face creased into a frown. "Or did I merely dream that?"

Then it turned to look at them both directly.

"I AM awake now, yes?" It asked and didn't even wait for a reply before nodding and placing its hands on its hips. "Yes, yes of course I am. Definitely awake now."

There was another long pause as the thing seemed to have difficulty dealing with thoughts with reaching implications.

"And if I'm not asleep, then I'm awake. And if I'm awake... then I must be free." It turned and looked back at the pool where the substance of its inner spirit had lain. "Oh. So I am. That's unexpected."

"Just who are you?" Umah asked tartly, impatience clear in her voice. When spoken to, the puppet started and turned to face them.

"I am Zabah, loyal servant of the Divus. But you should know this. All know this." It said as if its words were obvious. His proclamation of obedience to the Divus however had already caused Raziel to frown and the talons on his right hand to reflexively twitch. "And whom do I have to thank for..."

It was then that this 'Zabah's' gaze finally fell on Umah and went suddenly silent. The two souls encased in metal stared at each other for a long moment of quiet, before Zabah straightened and the dimly confused and dazed expression the articulate face had borne faded, melting away as memories seemed to resurface. The personality that came through however wore a new expression of naught, superior contempt.

"So, the practise of forging souls to dolls of metal still persists amongst the Serioli, does it?" The voice changed, becoming deeper, more resonant as if it were a voice trained to speak loudly to crowds and filled with disdain. "Intolerable heathens, the lot of them!"

He half turned, catching sight of Raziel himself now. The metal face contorted in disgust at the sight of him, seeing him as he really was now.

"And you? What manner of ghoul are you?" Zabah demanded, pointing a metal finger at him accusingly. The blue wraith straightened, eyes narrowed to slits.

"I am Raziel." He replied flatly, knowing full well what the reaction would be. Zabah's pointing hand twitched and then his fist clenched tight.

"You free me just to insult me? To claim the name of the king and scribe of heaven?" He asked with some venom. Slowly the metal puppet moved forward, raising both hands up before the chest and laying one over the other. The talons spread out wide from each hand, the curving metal gleaming gold. "You have my thanks for freeing me. But for your clear unrepentant sins, you will die."

There was a sudden loud noise, the grating of metal on metal as with unexpected swiftness the puppet's body morphed. All about the transforming puppet, the ground weakened and crumbled, cracks appearing, as rock and stone was syphoned up to form new elements and appendages. The body began to thicken in places, across the shoulders and chest at first, building up mass and forming pieces of armor plating in a style Raziel had never seen before. Then armor kept on spreading, forming wrist and shin guards and then finally a helmet over the head with a vistor to protect the face. A spot Raziel knew from experience was the weak point.

Curved blades of varying thickness began sprouting across the armor, curving out from the shoulders, across the forearms and down the shins. Then finally the knuckles on each hand sprouted a pair of blades, each about a foot long and with a razor sharp gleaming edge. These were brandished up, level with his face and as they moved they made a distinct hissing noise, as if they were slicing the air itself.

Raziel flourished his arm, summong the wraith blade and holding it out before him as with his left arm he summoned the electrical hum of his shield.

"For the Divus and the glory of God!" Zabah cried as he lunged forth.


	10. King

Zabah was fast. Faster then Raziel had thought possible given his metallic form. He was across the room in the blink of an eye, his leg whipping around so fast it was a blur of shining metal. The kick caught the blue wraith unprepared in the side with bone shattering force. It sent him spiralling through the air until he tumbled across the floor of the chamber, finally coming to a stop when he slammed up against the wall.

Raziel had a moment of stunned vision before Zabah was on him again, left fist drawn back for a killing strike. Realising the danger only at the last second, the wraith ducked under the pair of blades which stabbed into the wall where his head had been only an instant before. He rolled free and clear, summoning the wraith blade and arching it around towards his enemy's unprotected flank.

But as the blade neared Zabah's waist, the metallic body responsed instantly and began to thicken, forming protective plates which deflected the strike. Instantly Zabah's right arm whipped around, the blades jutting from the back of his knuckles slicing across Raziel's chest and carving deep. Raziel staggered back with a grunt of pain, the energy that sustained his physical form pouring out of him from that slice.

Zabah came at him again, relentless in his attack. Quickly, realising the danger his enemy posed, Raziel brought up his shield and activated it. The barrier formed only just in time, the two blades on the back of Zabah's left fist straining to push through. Quickly Raziel rolled and ducked, avoiding a swipe as his enemy's right arm came around with the blades whistling as they sliced the air.

He took the opportunity to attack, lunging in with the wraith blade in a thrust directly to his enemy's midsection. But as he did, once more the metal body reacted on its own, thickening its armour in the spot that was about to be struck so that when the wraith blade plunged forth it was deflected off to one side.

Zabah lashed out, plunging his blades down towards Raziel's head before the wraith could move out of the way. Umah leapt forward, slamming her own metal body into their enemy and forcing him to stagger off to one side. Raziel used the distraction to constricting his body as tight as he dared before unleashing that pent up energy in a kick directly into Zabah's chest. It knocked the puppet backwards and onto his backside.

Quickly Raziel was on him, slicing the wraith blade at the one spot he knew was vunerable, the head and face. But once more the armor formed by the element of earth within Zabah protected him, thickening the defense and leaving the strikes of the wraith blade insert and useless. With a grunt Zabah smacked Raziel back with the palm of one hand, forcing him off.

"You Serioli heathens were only tolerated because you were useful!" He growled, standing back up with his arms outstretched. Each blades sprouting from his arms and legs glistened in the golden light he gave off. "You could kill Hylden! It was your only redeeming quality!"

Umah tried to run at him again, but this time Zabah was ready. He turned like lightning, grappling with her and pushing her back. A pair of blades lanced forward in a punch but Umah leapt to one side and grabbed his arm under her own. Zabah stabbed with his free arm and again she caught it, pinning it to her side. When she had both of his arms locked to her, she jammed her head forward and smashed her helmet into his. The sound of metal ringing on metal made a loud echoing clatter.

"It was you Divus that inspired the Sarafan!" She snapped angrily, taking the oppotunity to punch Zabah across the face. "It was you who had Moebius cut off my father's head!" The armor thickened in response to her attack but it wasn't enough to keep Zabah from staggering back a few paces. She launched on in, punching into him over and over. "It was you who directed men to hunt down anything that defied you like an animal! Everything wrong in Nosgoth can be traced back to you and your disgusting religion!"

She went to punch him again but Zabah reacted fast, grabbing her wrist with his left hand and then in the same fluid motion running her through with the blades on the right. Each of them was long enough to puncture right through her armored body and emerge out the back.

"That is the natural order." He said in a low, flat tone. Umah slowled turned her head and looked down at the blades stuck through her mid section, the inner glow of her own soul leaking out around the wound.

Raziel was on him in a flash, leaping onto him from behind and grapping over his helmed head with his bare talons. He scrabbled frantically and savagly, scraping, digging, clawing like an enraged beast. Zabah released Umah and staggered back several paces, struggling to disengage the wraith from between his wings. Umah dropped down to her knees with a clatter, still staring down at the wound and cupping it with her open hands.

"You confuse nature with selfish desire!" Raziel snarled, scraping his talons across Zabah's face as deep as he could. Once more the element of earth served its master well for as fast as he was clawing away, the armor was reforming and even thickening to protect the face.

"The Lord is the hub! The center and the beginning and end of all things!" Zabah declared back, reaching back and managing to grab ahold of Raziel's right foot. "His will is the will of the Divus!" With one powerful tug he tore the blue wraith from his back.

Raziel spun free, using his shield to deflect stabs and lunges by long blades, forced to back off step by step as Zabah pressed him. The blades tore at the shield without pause, slashing from the right, the left, above and below, trying to find a way around it. Raziel had to keep moving his arm to protect himself.

Realising he had to try something new, the blue wraith clenched the fist of his left hand and thrust the shield forward just as his enemy lunged. As he did, he called forth the element of water it had obtained. With a blush of blue, constrasting with the golden light, the shield flared with the new energies. A thick ring of blue ice formed out of mid air around the shield, snowflakes forming, dissolving and reforming around the extended aegis.

Zabah grunted in surprise and backed off quickly, withdrawing the blades he had been attacking with. He held them up, revealing that they were now encrusted with a thick coating of ice that spread down over the hand until finally ceasing its advance just below the elbow.

"Serioli wizardry." He muttered with some disgust and clenched a fist, shattering the encrusting ice into fragments.

Raziel went forward, moving in on the offensive. The shield protecting him was now large enough to keep Zabah's slashes away from most of his body and allow him to strike back. Try as he might, Zabah's claws could not get through the barrier and each time he tried his limbs became more and more encrusted with thickening layers of ice.

Raziel kept up the pressure, advancing with the shield and forcing Zabah to retreat. As the ice spread, the metal body of his enemy began to slow, movements stiffening and joints creaking loudly in protest. By the time Zabah noticed, looking down to see his feet suddenly stuck to the floor by growing pillars of ice, it was already too late. Raziel advanced quickly one final step and pressed the shield directly into his face.

Ice flowed over Zabah's body, layer after layer of it piling one atop the other until the entire metal puppet body was encased. When the ice was perhaps ten inches thick, Raziel stepped back several steps. Zabah was now a statue, arms raised to try ward off the advancing enemy and head turned to the side. Within the ice, the golden glow was still just as strong as ever.

Raziel knew an oppotunity when he saw it and summoned the wraith blade. With as much strength he could muster he brought it around in a rolling slash, then back from the other direction, move and over.

With his metal body frozen, Zabah's armor could not thicken to protect him, so this time the wraith blade slashed deep into his puppet body. The ice was shattered but so too was his armor. The blows were deep and savage, biting almost all the way through, leaving thick oozing golden spirit dripping out of the thick cuts.

Trailing thick ice shards and golden light, he staggered back and then dropped to his hands and knees. His armor was rent and broken all over him, dropping away and turning to thick piles of dust as they hit the floor. Raziel knew better then to allow him the opportunity to recover and stepped forward, raising his sword to stab it through his enemies head.

Zabah loked up sharply seeing the oncoming attack and as Raziel lunged, he rolled off to one side. As he rolled he swung his leg around, knocking Raziel's out from under him. The blue wraith fell to the floor with a thud and quickly struggled to rise again, but that break in the action was all Zabah had needed.

Already he was summoning replacement armor pieces, the floor beneath him suffering from his drawing elements from it to form it; cracking and splintering as it weakened.

"Those who defy death are punished with death!" Zabah declared with rightceous fury as his helmet reformed over his face. "You will all turn the wheel!"

Before his armor could reform completly however, Umah was suddenly behind him. With one fist she slammed a punch into his still unprotected back and deep into his body. Zabah gasped and lerched forward. Umah clung to him, her arm sliding deeper and deeper into his body.

"All you are is krill in the mouth of a whale!" She snarled at him, hauling him back so his chest was exposed. "And I'll be damned before I join you on the dinner plate!"

Armor was moving across Zabah's body, sliding from the front to the back in an attempt to force her out of him. Weakened by the blows he had suffered, Zabah could not completely cover his body and had to choose which parts of himself he could protect.

Raziel quickly took the offensive and stabbed the wraith blade in between the parting armor plates, directly into his enemy's chest. This time it went in unhindered and deep. Zabah let out a grasp and a cry of pain which was abruptly cut off when the blue wraith brought the blade up sharply, cutting through his torso up through his left shoulder. Sliced open completly, armor falling off him in large chunks to disolve into dust, Zabah collapsed beneath Umah's weight and was pinned to the floor.

"No! Not again!" He cried out, the instant before Raziel's talons smashed through his metal face with a loud crunch and into the recesses of his skull.

Umah wrenched her arm free and moved back quickly, watching with disquiet as Raziel did what he knew he had to do. Once more he called on the gift of the grubby soul of Elzevir to syphon the soul out of the vessel it had briefly occupied and into a far safer container. The soul of the devoted Divus servant and fanatic struggled and squirmed like a caught fish but Raziel methodically drew it out.

Inch by inch he tore it free until the metal puppet, empty of any animating force, collapsed to the floor inert. The shield flickered, its water energies receeding. Then with a flare a new golden light took its place. The barrier it protected widened to cover Raziel almost completly, its outer edge shown by clumps of dust and debris orbiting in a slow circle. The device at the center, strapped to the wraith's arm, throbbed with newly absorbed power glowing a deep yellow.

-0-

**"Reinforced and strengthened, the shield was now forged with the elemental power of Earth. I could feel the very ground move and shake beneath me in response. Perhaps now my way through Fanum-Divus would no longer be obstructed."**

-0-

Slowly Raziel straightened, pausing to admire the new barrier the shield protected with his outstretched left arm. It seemed every time a soul was added, the larger the protective area became. He could feel the new elemental force within ripple like small aftershocks of an earthquake. It made his arm tremble to hold it forth like that, as if trying to hold up a tremendous weight.

Quickly he dismissed it and turned around. Umah was still crotched over the puppet's remains. The armor which had coated it had dusted completly to dust, leaving its battered and rent form lying face down on the ground. The two stab marks were still quite clear in her mid section right above the naval.

"Are you alright?" He asked, coming to her side. She looked down, pressing one hand to the holes.

"I feel no pain." Umah told him, shaking her head. "I don't feel anything in this body." She stood up and began to clear the dust off her hands. "It just stunned me for a moment. I havn't been run through before. It caught me off guard."

"It didn't damage the structure of your vessel, did it?" Raziel asked. She took her head again.

"No, I am intact." She gave him a long look through, head tilted to look directly at the device on his wrist which formed the shield.

"What did you do there?" She asked him in a low almost frightened voice. Raziel raised his hand, turning his wrist so they could both see the centre of the strange device. There were two lights circling one another within it now, one blue and the other gold.

"I placed his soul into something far more suitable." He said, admiring the two lights like they were fireflies.

"You can do that?" Umah sounded startled. Raziel raised his eyebrows in the best his ruined face could manage of a smile.

"Apprantly I can." He remarked. Then he caught her looking at him speculatively. "Within limits, Umah." He told her sternly. She made a dismissive handwave to reject his rebuke.

"If Ukko could do this to souls, then this is indeed the place we seek. The key to reviving Ashar must be here!" She said. Raziel was inclined to agree. From the little he had seen so far, this place was a haven of secret techniques which defied the imagination. Exactly how this mysterious mentor of Ajatar's had been able to perform such miracles, beyond the wildest dreams of any current Serioli, was for the moment unknown.

Slowly Raziel reached into the folds of his cowl and took out the key he had been given. His instincts told him where he needed to go now but the problem of the dilation of time concerned him. If indeed he was returned to the normal flow of time disproportionate to the amount of time spent there, then he risked losing whatever time of preperation they might have before the Promised Day arrived. Was that why Ophiel had given it to him? To lead him on a wild goose chase through Fanum-Divus with no other purpose then to distract him and waste his time? Somehow Raziel did not think so.

"What is that?" Umah asked, spotting the strange device in his hand. Raziel frowned and turned away.

"I may be gone for some time." He said determinably and swiftly pressed the button like jewel in its centre. The last he saw of Umah was her taking a startled step away from him as the world around him peeled away, leaving a white void of nothingness. Then once more a new environment formed around him, sliding into place to take the place of the old.

He was back standing before the massive sealed metal door he had left behind. About him, the towering and labarinthian maze that was Fanum-Divus loomed; as large as the world and the origin of all myths of an angelic afterlife. From a distance the city with all its laid out splender did indeed appear as most religious texts would describe heaven. But close up it was revealed for the imperialistic dwelling of generations of slaves it really was.

Before him the door with the two large statues either side was still sealed firmly shut. He did not know if his instincts were correct but he did not have any other option but to try. Raising his left hand, he called forth the element of Earth. His arm trembled as the shield manifested its new powers, spinning its three prongs faster and faster with the circling dust becoming shards of flint like stone which droped large flakey particles all about him.

With the low grinding sound of protesting metal the two towering statues began to move, slowly at first and then with gathering speed. Each of them freed a hand from their weapons and moved them over to grasp one of the thick bars barring the door. With a firm grip the statues pulled the bars free and off to one side, the obstructions cleared with a loud echoing clang.

Then the door itself began to open, the doors moving inward with the creeking of large hidden mechanisms. Beyond the door was another tall hallway leading up a marble incline to some chamber far above.

-0-

**"Once more the doors of Fanum-Divus gave way to me and the path was clear. The fact that such barriers opened to me only upon the infusion of force within the shield did not escape my notice as being exceptionally conveniant."**

-0-

Quickly Raziel advanced into the opening passage, moving up the hallway. The walls were tiled with equally sized squares, some darker then the others which formed complex alternating patterns. The floor was marble so highly polished he could see his own reflection in it and in an extremely petty sort of way which he knew was childish, he felt a bit of satisfaction that he was leaving dusty footprints all over it.

The path up was short but steep, leading him up what felt like a good few hundred feet before he reached a level path which curved around a corner to his left and into a wide open space. The chamber he entered there was another large chasm of an opening, similar in shape to the one where he had encountered Asmodeus and the dragon, although slightly smaller.

It had dozens of levels along the walls linked by long curving stairscases and long bridges of oynx and marble and the walls and floors were all highly polished and decorative. Light came from large and very complex chandeliers which hung from a curved ceiling far overhead. They were large brass constructions with the light coming from sphere shaped crystals hung from thick chains. Each one was like a small star and together they made an illuminating galaxy.

But the chamber's most prominent feature were the uncountable rows upon rows of books, scrolls and tomes of all kinds which lined every single wall on every single level right down to the floor far below.

-0-

**"And so I beheld the great library of the Divus. It put any collection of knowledge in the normal world to shame with its sheer size. One might search forever within this cascade of books and never emerge. If the tome of my first incarnation was truly here then I would have to devise some means of pin pointing its exact location."**

-0-

The blue wraith came to the edge of a bannister and looked down over it. The floor was far below and from above he could see that the pattern the tiles on the floor formed was the infinity symbol that once he had taken as merely Moebius' sigil but which he now knew represented the entire Wheel of Fate religion. But also, just as he had feared, he could see the forms of homunculi standing guard.

Most were stood at the tops or bottoms of staircases but a few were patrolling, walking slowly back and forth along the bridges which stretched between the various levels. He could see about twenty of them from where he was standing but undoudtedly there would be many many more, not to mention the possiblity of any Divus themselves taking advantage of the books. Openly exploring this library was out of the question, not unless he wanted to bring the entire city down on his head.

Quickly he climbed up onto the banister and then leapt, taking hold of his wings in mid air to glide forward. His wings carried him forward swiftly until he caught hold a length of chain which hung one of the large chandeliers from the far ceiling. He slid down it swiftly until he came to the chandalier itself and there he crouched, as close to the chain as possible.

When he saw no movement, not sudden cry of alarm, he leapt once more from his perch and took to his wings. Silently he glided from chain to chain, pausing at the chandeliers to look around and ensure he had not be spotted before carrying on. As far as he could see the library only had homunculi guards here. He could see no other people about, but that did not mean they were not here.

As he glided, Raziel looked for some means of finding the book he sought. If it were truly as important and essential as it seemed to be, he doubted it would be simply stuffed into some random shelf. Such a tome as that would be somewhere central and isolated, perhaps even protected.

The library seemed logically organised like any other library, the books and other tomes arranged in alphabetical order. Although not in the modern Nosgoth alphabet but rather the older language spoken by the Ancients. It was similar to the modern in some ways but it had a different arrangement of letters and even a few unique figures to it. The beginning with 'A' seemed to begin at the bottom of the chamber with himself hanging near 'J'.

Taking a chance, Raziel leapt out and glided over to a nearby floor. He had seen no homunculi there from his perch but for all he knew, one could come along at any moment, so he had to be swift. Quickly he went to the rows of shelves and began rummaging through them. He had no illusion that the book was here, but he needed some kind of reference to help him navigate this chamber or he was getting nowhere.

The book he withdrew from the shelf was a large box, very much like the one he had seen his first incarnation holding up in the floor mural. Within were thick pages of textures parchment upon which were jotted a very spidery sort of writing which at first made no sense. It was written in the ancient language but the font being used by the writer scrawled so much that Raziel frowned in concentration as he attempted to read it.

Whoever had written this called himself Uriel-Divus and it seemed to be some sort of chronicle detailing the events of some sort of migration. Written down were thorough and meticulous records of births, deaths and numbers of those who made the crossing as well as what supplies were brought with them. It was only when Raziel came across a passage that read -'Thus have the lower cracks been filled with industry and work'- did he realise what exactly he was reading.

This was no document detailing a migration or evacuation. This was a book that recorded how the slaves of Fanum-Divus had first been transported to the city. They had begun as soldiers in Moebius' uprising army and then once their purpose was fulfilled, they had been taken here to work throughout their future generations as labour. An entire new race of humanity in eternal servitude.

The men described in the book were not spoken of as living sentient beings or even as cattle, but rather as assets, resources to be used or abused depending on whatever need arose. Raziel frowned, an uncomfortable parallel forming in his mind. During Kain's rule of Nosgoth the humans left there had been treated almost exactly the same way, thought of as livestock and fresh supplies of blood and little else. He himself had thought of them this way, barely giving a human being a second though beyond the need to feed or whatever small amusement might be taken from them.

His brow creased in thought he pushed the book back into place. He recalled Kain's words when they had met at the chronoplast. They had been arguing the merits of the Sarafan order and Kain had said 'Their agenda was the same as ours'. Neither of them could have known just how apt that statement was, now their true enemies were revealed. It was not a comfortable comparison.

"We have to be better." Raziel found himself saying out loud, one hand still on the spine of the book. "We have to be better or this struggle means nothing." Within his mind and very soul he could feel Ariel's presence, her agreement with his statement a powerful reassurance.

"We all do, Raziel." She told him with regret of her own in her voice.

Raziel continued, moving down the rows of books, occasionally casting glances over his shoulder for signs of the guards. His search was proving fruitless. So far any tome he came across seemed a written testiment from a specific Divus about important events ranging from the trivial to the important and all points inbetween. While perhaps a study of the history of the city might be fascinating from a purely scholary perspective it did little to further his search for a means of locating the one book he desired.

Finally he came to a tall plain window set into the wall. He was prepared to crotch underneath it to prevent his being spotted from the outside but once glance out of that window made him stop in stunned awe.

"My god..." He gasped.

What he saw he had seen before when he had been searching for Kain, but its current state was what made him freeze for the implications were terrifying.

-0-

**"The Ark! The vessel, intended to ferry the Divus and my former master across the stars to whatever end they sought, was complete! Never had a sight been more menacing as this, for it could mean only one thing. They were ready and prepared for their end game, the Promised Day, whenever that was to occur in real time."**

-0-

The ship, shaped like a pair of curving swans wings coming together at the bow, was a massive construction. Built here over who knows how long a time, in a city where time meant little, it was a vessel which rivaled a normal city in size. Before it had been covered in scaffolding, slaves brought up to work over its hull. Now that scaffolding was gone and the ship itself loomed, jutting out from the edge of the city into the void beyond like a golden knife. Compared to the bulk of Fanum-Divus around it, it did not appear to be that large but Raziel knew how vast the vessel really was.

As time in Fanum-Divus ran out of sync with the normal flow of causlity, the ships completion was no indication of exactly when the time for its use would be. But if it was complete then Raziel had to assume it would be soon. Doomsday, the end times and the failing of the world was almost upon them and they still had no idea exactly what the Promised Day entailed.

"I confess, I didn't expect you to make it this far so soon." A distrubingly familar voice began in almost jovial tone. "I really ought to stop underestimating you." Raziel spun about, summoning the wraith blade.

Leaning with his shoulder against the wall on the far side of the window like he always been there was Asmodeus. The new King of Fanum-Divus still had his crown atop his head, as if it were a permanent fixture to his skull. His lips were parted in a superior smile which showed off his teeth. A sword in a leather sheath hung at his left hand side, the handle raised up and glistening a pure white.

Raziel suppressed a flare of panic at being discovered. He knew it was only a matter of time until he was found but to come face to face with Asmodeus so casually was not how he expected it to go. He kept himself as steady as he could. Asmodeus was standing at least five paces away. That was more than enough prudent distance for him to react if he were to make a lunge.

Slowly he straightened and stood to his full height, flowing his sword but keeping the wraith blade flickering by his side.

"So my coming here was of your design?" He asked. The new King of Fanum-Divus' smirk widened almost ear to ear.

"Of course, but then you know that." Asmodeus replied superciliously, guesturing one hand all about him. "Everything that happens within this city is by my design." He brought the hand back and laid it across his chest. "Once it was yours. Now it is mine."

"You're welcome to it." Raziel replied with flat disdain, keeping very still and his senses as widly open as he could. He doudted Asmodeus would be here alone.

"Oh please, spare me the act." Asmodeus scoffed at the rebuke, sneering in contempt. "All it would take to make you as you were is the right push, a sufficent incentive." He folded his arms across his midsection and leaned forward slightly, his expression one of smug condesension.

"I knew you, the first you, quite well." He said with malice. "You were spoiled, selfish, stupid and your ego was so enlarged that I find it amazing our God had the patience to deal with you." The new king paused and then chuckled at some personal, private joke.

"And then when you learned of your damned and ruined future you were even worse! You devoted every moment you hand trying to find a way to avoid it, scrabbling and tantruming like a child, even though you knew there was no way you could." He paused and cupped his chin with one hand contemplatively. "Seems that's a trait that hasn't died, I see."

Raziel narrowed his eyes, having had enough of an earful of Asmodeus' goading to last him a lifetime.

"I renounced my past once already." He said with weary but firm finalty. "Now why did you allow me here?" Asmodeus' anwsering smile was oily. He pointed out the window towards the Ark.

"I wanted you to see." He said, briming with self congratulatory praise and his tone dripping with spite. "I wanted you to see what was coming. The Ark you ordered the construction of, that you naively hoped you could captain yourself, finally complete and under my rule. I am going to go on to do what you never could. I will destroy Kain. I will sweep Nosgoth clean of all dissent once and for all. Then I will venture out into the stars at the right hand of my God!"

Kain had told him that it had been Ophiel, under Asmodeus' direction, who had saved him from being cast out in the void in which Fanum-Divus floated. It seemed Asmodeus, if his rant was to be believed, had merely done so because he wanted the glory of killing Kain all to himself once he had disposed of his former ruler. Raziel began to wonder then if this really was goading or if Asmodeus had some deep inquenchable lust and need to spite the one who had once been his master

"If you think you're a match for Kain then you're an even bigger fool than I thought." He said flatly, before he edged one foot closer. By now he was certain. There were no guards or reinforcements coming. Asmodeus had come here alone. "But whatever you have in mind, Asmodeus, no longer matters." With a burst of speed he leapt forward. "Your reign ends here, King of the Divus!"

Asmodeus didn't flinch. His movement was lightning fast, drawing his sword from its sheath and bringing it sharply up to block Raziel's thrust. To the wraith's surprise, the gleaming white blade he drew parried the wraith blade and diverted it off to one side.

The white blade gleamed brightly like a slither of sunlight, its surface polished smoothed like a mirror and engraved with the elemental fire symbol across its centre blood groove. Asmodeus chuckled evily and then lashed out, pushing Raziel back and forcing him to dance out of the range of the swipe. He stared back, startled by the ability of such a sword.

"I told you I was not going to be easy to kill." Asmodeus reminded him, hefting the blade by the hilt in his direction. "So tell me, what do you think of Clarent the King Maker? Forged by Vorador himself and used by William the Just to conquer the east of Nosgoth!" He held it up for Raziel to see.

For a one handed sword it was very long, about the length of an entire arm, but Asmodeus weilded it as if it weighed nothing. Its form was simple, with a straight blade which bloomed out slightly at the tip before narrowing to a point. Raziel was no blacksmith, but even he could see that only a master craftsman of Vorador's calibur could have created such a thing.

"I'd wager its even a match for the Reaver." Asmodeus remarked, raising the sword to head height to cast his eyes up down the reflective blade with a satisfied smirk. Then his eyes flicked up. "But let's put that to the test, shall we?!"


	11. Blades

Asmodeus swung the white sword around in an almost graceful dance before thrusting it forward with enough force to make the air whistle. Raziel side stepped at once, slapping the blade to one side with the flat of his hand as it came by. Flourishing the wraith blade he brought it up sharply, aiming for his enemy's chest. But Asmodeus arched backwards, letting the spectral sword pass over him an inch from his nose before he retaliated with a kick that caught Raziel in the side and bashed him up against a shelf. Some books and scrolls tumbled free on impact.

Clarent came arching around again and Raziel brought his left arm up swiftly, the shield device summoning with the snap of its mechanisms to project the energy barrier. The sword bit deep into that barrier and then stopped, unable to pass through. Even so the blow of Asmodeus' sword against his arm slammed him again into the shelves, dislodging more books. The blow had been enough to jar him from head to toe. Asmodeus was evidently stronger than he appeared.

The wraith directed a firmly kick to his enemies midsection. Asmodeus let out a grunt and took several steps backward, his back butting into the banister behind him. Raziel quickly went himself on the offensive slashing repeatedly towards Asmodeus' unprotected head and conceited crown, aiming for a killing strike at the face. But the new king of Fanum-Divus raised the sword he carried and blocked each strike, the white blade gleaming each time it and the wraith blade came into contact.

Had Vorador truly forged such a weapon, Raziel wondered. If so when had he done so and how had it found its way into Divus hands. It was extremely unlikely Vorador would have entertained a direction commission from them. As the two swords clashed, Clarent easily withstanding the wraith blade, Raziel could well believe the claim that it had been used by William the Just to defeat his enemies and rule a kingdom.

Finally Asmodeus thrust his arm forward, forcing Raziel to step back before he swung the sword again. Raziel's hastily brought up shield deflected the blow but Asmodeus kept coming, bringing Clarent around again and again in a flurry of strikes as if trying to push through the blue wraith's defense by sheer force. Each blow made Raziel's arm shiver and tense, going numb. Whether that was Clarent's doing or Asmodeus was naturally that strong wasn't clear.

Step by step Raziel was forced to retreat, pressed back along the library level past many different rows of books. Asmodeus advanced with him, his blows becoming more aggressive and fast, more energy put into them. As his arm began to turn into a dead weight, Raziel knew he had to try something quickly. He knew from experience that various spells or powers, including telekinesis, would work here. Whatever the Divus had that prevented it, he didn't know but only their powers were permitted. So it was time to use something he knew first hand worked.

The element of Earth, so recently contained within the shield, burst out with the force of an avalanche. Raziel had once look at Asmodeus' startled face before his enemy was suddenly struck by a barrage of rocks forming out of the dust orbiting the shield. They bombarded him relentlessly, forcing him back until a larger rock the size of a Human head formed out of the dust and slammed into him. Asmodeus was thrown back until he collided with the banister several feet away. It fractured at the impact and then broke, pieces of it tumbling into the library's huge empty space. Asmodeus swayed on the edge, unbalanced and disoriented.

Raziel pressed his advantage at once, running at his enemy before launching himself into a flying kick. He put as much energy and forced into it as he could, slamming both feet into Asmodeus' chest. The impact sent the King of Fanum-Divus spiralling out over the edge and tumbling away out of sight with a yelp. Raziel righted himself at once, quickly advancing over to the edge to peer over it.

A moment later Asmodeus soared up, his black wings beating to carry him from a deadly plunge into the air. Clarent swept up sharply, coming around in so swift an arc that Raziel did not have time to defend himself. He stepped back but too late, the sword slicing into his chest deep and spilling out so much energy in that one slash that Raziel let out a gasp and tumbled backwards onto his hindquarters.

The attack hadn't been enough to destroy his physical form thankfully for Fanum-Divus' lack of a spectral realm would have left him no place to retreat to, but it did drain his reserves of sustaining energy dramatically. Above, Asmodeus flapped his wings to maintain his position in mid air only for a moment before he plunged down, driving Clarent down towards the blue wraith with all the force of his weight behind it. Raziel's eyes widened in alarm when he saw it coming and dived forward, rolling out of the way before the sword slammed down with enough force to embed it in the floor up the hilt.

Raziel dived out over the edge of the banister into mid air. He didn't catch hold of his wings to go into a glide however, but rather with his arms outstretched. It was a long jump but he managed to catch hold of one of the crystalline chandeliers which hung from the library's ceiling. It swung backwards as he grabbed hold of it, propelled by his weight. Quickly he hauled himself up onto it, just as in time as Asmodeus flew at him again with Clarent drawn back in a killing strike.

The chandelier swung out and back again and using its momentum, Raziel propelled himself back into the air again. He spun over Asmodeus' thrusting blade and over his head entirely, but as he came down against he grabbed ahold of his enemy's wings and grasped tightly, clinging to his back. Asmodeus let out an alarmed cry and spiralled up into the air, struggling to throw the blue wraith off.

Raziel hung on with his left hand before bringing his right down, summoning the wraith blade and bringing it down across the back of Asmodeus' neck. If the king of Fanum-Divus hadn't dived at that exact moment, the strike might very well have taken his head off. Rather the dive altered Raziel's aim slightly so instead the wraith blade sliced into his enemy's shoulders instead.

Asmodeus let out a cry of pain, wings beating furiously before they threw the pair of them sharply to one side. They spun together in a tight spiral for a moment before colliding with force into the side of another of the library's levels, books and scrolls spilling down over them from broken shelves. The impact threw Raziel off and he tumbled down and landed before another of the windows which allowed sight of the Ark from the library's vantage point.

Asmodeus stood up, shaking several scrolls from his bloodied shoulders. The expression on his face was one of annoyance, the eye surrounded by the spidery tattoo twitching. The wounds he had suffered were gaping slashes across the length of his shoulders, leaking blood down to stain his toga near black, but he bore them as if they gave him no pain. Raising a hand he placed it upon his shoulder directly over one of the larger wounds. His hand seemed to emit some sort of illumination, a pale green light. When he removed his hand, the wounds were closing, the flesh knitting itself back together like a repaired tapestry. The skin flowed back over it, leaving a seamless surface without so much as a faint scar.

"Those of Divus are not only blessed with the gift of immortality outside of the Wheel, but no injury save the fatal are beyond our ability to heal!" He chuckled, brushing some drops of discarded blood from his hands. "But then you'll have forgotten that."

Raziel grunted and hauled himself back up to his feet, summoning the wraith blade one more with a flick of his right wrist.

"I will simply have to take off your head." The wraith replied flatly and lunged, taking the offensive. Clarent swept up, blocking the attacks blow by blow. Raziel was quick to notice however that while Asmodeus had the advantage of strength he liked equivalent reflexes. Perhaps he was a match for Kain in that regard, but Raziel with his spindly body and lack of encumbering mass was capable of moving much faster.

He pressed that advantage, moving in and ducking under and around each lunge Asmodeus made. Clarent sang through the air over and beside him, a lancing, slicing, piercing blade almost like sunlight. The wraith moved in a deadly dance with the lethal ray coming close to him, mere inches from his frame at a time.

As the bright sword came down in an attempt to slice him from head to toe, he slipped to one side, spun in that same motion and used the momentum to bring the wraith blade sharply across Asmodeus' middle. It sliced through his enemy's toga and than sank, burning, into his belly. Bloody slurped out in a jet and Asmodeus doubled over, gasping and crying out at the pain.

Raziel pressed in, trying to dive the blade deeper and angle it up into the chest. But his enemy's free hand lashed out and grabbed him by the wrist, holding his arm and preventing it from pushing the sword forward. Asmodeus growled at him, blood running from his mouth.

"Oh no you don't!" He snapped angrily and head-butted Raziel with enough force to cause the wraith to stagger back. The wraith blade dissipated and Raziel hopped on one foot undignified before Clarent came arching around and sank deep into his shoulder. Energy spilled out of him in that one blow, so much that he could feel his physical form flicker, almost too much lost to sustain itself. Gasping he tugged back and staggered until he rested against the window.

Desperately he struggled to hold onto whatever shreds of energy he could to keep himself together. He could feel little bits of himself tear off, not to return to the spectral realm but to fade away beyond his senses, as if they had ceased to exist.

Asmodeus paused for a moment, his hand on his belly as he healed the injury. Blood and torn tissues flowing back into place before he straightened, the blood soaked clothes he wore the only evidence left that there had been any wounds inflicted at all. He cracked his neck to one side then bent to pick up the crown which had been dropped from his brow during the last exchange.

"I had no means of gauging this weapon's true potential before." He admitted. He was out of breath, his chest heaving. Either the battle had exhausted him or his ability to heal such injuries came from a well of energy that had a finite limit. He held his sword out in front of him, admiringly. "But this is greater then I could have imagined! Clarent the great king maker, scourge of all those who defy its wielder's authority! That it should come to me only proves what I always suspected!" His eyes travelled up the sword to lock onto Raziel. "That to rule and dominate, to extend their reach across all of creation was MY destiny not yours!"

The wraith grunted, leaning against the window to keep himself on his feet.

"For the ruler of creation, you talk too much." He said, keeping the fatigue and weakness he felt out of his voice.

"Perhaps I do." Asmodeus admitted freely, resting the blade at his side with his hand upon the hilt. "But then a king should be a professional orator, should he not?" Slowly then his smile began to fade. "Although I believe I've indulged my fancy for entertainment long enough. A king does have responsibilities."

Quickly he half turned, looking back over his shoulder, raising his free hand and clenching it into a tight fist.

"Azazel! Now!" He cried. Raziel looked up sharply, expecting some attack to come from an unseen place. But there was nothing.

When he looked back he saw suddenly standing before him was another figure, slim and short with greezy black hair and pale kin. But he was no human, for his hands and feet were clove like those of ancient vampires and he had a pair of wings attached to his back. But they were terrible unkempt wings, filthy with feathers suffering from the worst kind mange. He wore nothing except a dirty smock around chest draping down to his thighs. He was gaunt his eyes were red with engorged blood vessels. His face was thin, filled with regret, weak resigned acceptance of a terrible fate.

He was the embodiment of pain, neglect and abuse. Raziel recoiled in surprise at the sight of the thing.

"Forgive me, my former lord." The wretch breathed in a voice that was barely above a whisper. "I serve a new master now." His arm lashed out, there was a glow, a bright flash of red, a terrible roar of sudden unleashed force.

Raziel never knew precisely what hit him. Whatever it was went him tumbled head over heads backwards, blowing out the window admits a shower of shattered glass. Left stunned, drained of energy to the threshold of dissipating, he spun around and down before he slammed shoulder first into a protruding wall. The momentum of his fall bounced him clear and he kept on falling, unable to arrest his descent. As he plummeted over the edge of a large stone precipice he had one last clear view of the window he had fallen through high above. Asmodeus was standing there, his gaunt servant at his side. Somehow Raziel managed to hear him as he said;

"Quit this place and leave. Fanum-Divus is yours no longer and I've no further use for you. Go be Kain's lap dog, its all you're good for anymore."

Down and down Raziel fell, tumbling towards the utter blackness of oblivion and negation below. Seeing that ultimate abyss jarred him to his core and he lashed out with the talons of both hands, sinking them into the stone wall he was cascading down. They bit deep, dislodging and carving through the stone. It was a gruesomely painful method of slowing himself, but it did prove effective. With the scatter of debris and dust he finally slowed to a stop, clutching a narrow ledge with his talons sunk into it up to the knuckle.

He had fallen down to the very bottom of the city, the carts from the slave dwellings, laden with ore and other refined materials, going by just underneath suspended by thick steel cables. The clunk and clatter of the carts was a unceasing industrial ambience. Below that was the last fall before one would be swallowed up and destroy by the black nothingness. Raziel clung there, grunting with the effort of keeping him in one pause despite how much energy he had lost. Forcing his body to move, he began to climb, his talons carving their way through the stone. Hand over hand he ascended up the slow and painful cliff of the city wall, eyes narrowed and burning with anger.

What other Divus did have Asmodeus have under his command if he could summon such a powerful servant like that? How many Divus were there with all kinds of powers and strange abilities to overcome? Raziel grunted, straining to pull himself up with his entire body aching and what strength he had left ebbing away.

-0-

**"If Asmodeus believed for one moment that I would be dissuaded he was an utter fool, even more so if he thought I didn't see through his now more obvious attempt at goading. I still did not know exactly what he wanted me for, but it was clear he still desired me to persue him through the city."**

-0-

He kept firmly to that conviction as he struggled to climb, sustaining himself through sheer willpower. Even so other questions ran through his mind.

-0-

**"Could it be the book? It had been Ophiel who had told me of its existence. Was she merely a means by which Asmodeus planned to lure me to it? Or did she have her own motives in telling me? Whatever the reason, it made locating the book and perhaps keeping it from Divus hands all the more urgent."**

-0-

His arms felt like poles of lead and every inch he clawed up the side of the near vertical surface was a tremendous effort. If he was capable of sweating he would have been doing so by the bucket load. He was in trouble now and he knew it. If he did not find sustenance and soon, he was going to cease to exist. Either from dissipating or from falling into the black abyss of nowhere and nowhen. There was no stable ledge within reach and he could feel his talons begin to shake and tremble.

Then without warning a section of wall just above him to his left pulled back with a sharp click and then swung to one side, revealing that it was in fact a false door. Behind it Raziel could just see the outline of a narrow passageway, tucked inside the outside wall inside. A human hand stretched forth from the shadows, offering him a hand up.

Instantly he thought of the lycanthropes and their use of such hidden passages. With no other option, his strength spent and help quite literally at hand, he reached up and grasped the offered palm. With a heave he was pulled up and in through the hidden door and into the relative hidden safety of the narrow passage. The door swung shut after him, sliding back in place with a loud thunk.

For a moment Raziel struggled to regain his breath, crotched on the floor in the darkness. His rescuer lit some kind of lamp above him and the flicker caused him to turn and look up at him. In an instant he was back on his feet, staggering back several alarmed steps. The figure standing there was not one of the lycanthropes at all but rather the slender black robed and black hatted form of Ophiel-Divus.

The servant of Asmodeus was just standing there holding the lamp up with one hand, dark shadows cast under the brim of her wide hat. Before Raziel could say a word she raised one finger to her lips, signalling him to be silent. Her meaning became clear when overhead, from some floor above them, came the heavy stamp of many feet and the muffled but distinct clank of men in armour. Either a squadron of the terracotta homunculi or actual living guards.

The two of them paused there, heads cocked to one side, listening the sound of footsteps overhead. There was an energetic scramble overhead, as many people were moving around looking for something, an alarm raised.

"Fanum-Divus knows you're here now. They will seek you out and destroy you if they find you." Her soft voice reached him, a hushed urgent whisper. He just glared back at her, eyes narrowed in angry suspicious. She held his gaze for a moment as the sound of moving feet began to fade.

"He may not show it, but you vex him." Ophiel continued on, holding his gaze. "He's afraid of you, my king. More afraid of you now then he's ever been."

"Why?" Raziel asked flatly, his tone hostile and filled with suspicion, scepticism and outright disbelief. Part of him was contemplating if it were best to run her through with his talons right here and now.

"Because he knows he can't placate you as he used to. You and he once had something in common. The pursuit of power. But that's all passed now." She told him in that same urgent manner. "He's afraid of the good man you've become."

"All very flattering." The wraith still did not sound impressed and he kept his distance. "But I've no more reason to trust you than I do him. Perhaps less."

She nodded slightly as if in rue acceptance of that and the expression that crossed her face was one of worry and perplexed concern.

"What I do is a paradox." Ophiel admitted. Raziel raised a questioning eyebrow at that. "I am following instructions that even I don't know the origin of."

"You speak in riddles." He said.

"Perhaps, but that is only because all I have myself are riddles." Was her slightly frustrated reply. "I am as much in the dark as you." She smiled sardonically. "So if I end up doing something that seems strange or hostile in future, please do not hold it against me. Perhaps when you learn the truth, so will I."

Raziel maintained a flat and unfriendly expression, now sure more then ever that to rely on her was a fool's gambit. She might even be sincere but if one did not truly understand what they were doing then they were less a player in the game and more a bumbling halfwit.

"Despite a Divus' ability to heal so quickly, we are not invincible." She surprised him by saying. Reaching out one hand she patted the wall of the passage beside her. "Our powers diminish the further from Fanum-Divus we are. The city is the seat of our power."

To tell him how to defeat Asmodeus was something he had not expected. It threw into question his suspicion she was mere a means of manipulating him. Asmodeus would surly not want such information to be known to his enemies. Or could he? The possibilities were endless but something about this revealing struck Raziel as genuine, rather then a means of misdirection.

"Why would you tell me this?" He demanded of her. Ophiel looked back at him silent for a moment. A sweet little smile parted her lips, placing the oil lamp down on the ground. Straightening again she took hold of the brim of her hat and inclined her head respectfully towards him.

"Good luck, my king." She said and then vanished, disappearing into whatever means of translocation the Divus employed, except of the blanketing effect on other powers.

"She's playing a very dangerous game." Ariel's voice observed with some puzzled concern from the depths of Raziel's soul as he stood alone in the passageway.

"Truly." He replied out loud, bending down to pick up the discarded oil lamp. It swung in his grip, causing the shadows to dance. "But exactly who she is playing that game against?" He looked up the passage, shaking his head. "I have doubts now that it's me."

With the lamp guiding the way Raziel began his way through the dark passage. It was less a tunnel and more of a maze of interconnected tunnels and narrow spaces, just as many going vertical as horizontal. To make his way back up from his fall required him to climb through these spaces, pausing to hold deadly still whenever a rise in noise told him of searchers nearby. The amount of times he was forced to stop told him quite clearly Ophiel had been telling the truth and that indeed the city had been roused to the presence of an intruder.

With his energy on the brink of collapsing his physical form he was in no fit state for any sort of fight. He doubted right now that he could take so much as another blow before dissipating into nothingness. Coming into conflict with the defenders of this city was, for the moment at least, completely out of the question.

He supposed the most efficient means of recovering would be to use the key he had to return to the normal world and recuperate in its spectral realm, before returning here. But given how much time seemed to be lost last time between his journeying to and fro from Fanum-Divus that did not seem wise either. Time was a resource they could not afford to waste so he resolved only to use the key to save himself if he was left with no other option. Far better to push on and make what headway he could.

Not too much longer he came across a small hole in the side of the passageway, very much like the one the werewolf had crawled through during that confrontation in the slave dwellings. Such holes were probably punched into every wall in Fanum-Divus in small out of the way places, giving the hounds access to almost all of the city through its dry runs. Raziel placed the lamp down away from the opening to prevent its light from being seen and surreptitiously peeked out.

Beyond was another large hallway like the first he had seen when arriving in the city. It was so similar in fact he had to take a long look to be sure it wasn't the same one. It curved around to the left and then up to a light of marble sheathed stairs that curled around a large pillar up and out of sight. A plain looking door was set into the opposite wall directly ahead, locked and bolted from this side. Standing in a group near the door were three men, talking lowly to each other in whispers Raziel couldn't hear from this distance.

It did not think they were Divus by the look of them. Their armor was consisted of a mail coat painted or forged jet black. Over this they had armour plating that was bright red in contrast almost the colour of blood. Curving horns and spikes jutted out from their face covering helmets and pauldrons giving them an almost demonic like appearance. One of them was carrying a cruel looking axe with a jagged shield strapped to his other arm. Another was leaning against the pole of a pike. The third had a serpentine sword, longer then the reaver with most twists in it.

Raziel acted instant, relying on speed, precision and the element of surprise. He tore himself through the hole, leapt through the air and was coming down on all three of them before any of them realised they were under attack. A powerful thrust of his talons slammed through the chest of the man with the sword, claiming his life instantly in a spray of blood as his heart was popped like a balloon. His body toppled forward, collapsing into a quivering pile of flesh and metal.

Raziel didn't wait. As the man with the axe turned to face the sudden gore, raising his axe in alarm the blue wraith was on him. He tore at the man's head with his talons, raking his helmet with large gashed before he took hold of it and violent snapped it to one side. There was a loud crack at the man's neck was broken and he folded up instantly.

The third man had time to bring his weapon down, the curved blade of the pike aimed directly at Raziel's back. Raziel had been expecting it. He dodged to the side and called on the wraith blade, dangerous to maintain while his energies were so depleted but necessary to end the struggle. He slashed through the staff, cutting it down to size slice by slice until it was no more then a stick in the man's hand. Then with a final flourish he slammed the flickering spectral blade up directly into the man's head. It carved through his skull and exploded the brain from the inside out, blood pouring out of the gaps in the helmet.

As the final corpse collapsed, Raziel drew down his cowl to expose his missing jaw and began to draw in the souls unleashed from their mortal remains. When one died in Fanum-Divus, Raziel suspected that their essence was drawn directly to his former master to satisfy his appetite. It gave him some small satisfaction to intercept the meal and use it to bolster his body and repair the damage inflicted upon it.

Three souls were sufficient to replenish his energy and solidify his hold on his physical form, although without much to spare. With the city roused to his presence he would have to be more careful. With three corpses sprawled over the floor with blood spilling across the tiles there was no way he was going to be able to hide the fact he had been here to anyone who came by.

Speed then was the answer and quickly Raziel made his way to the stairs, ascending them as swiftly as he may while keeping his senses pricked for any indication of the presence of others. Although the stairs went up a long way they fortunately proved vacant of occupants and he cleared them without incident.

At the top of the stairs there was a sort of half oval space which opened out to reveal a large ornate door. It was pure gold in colour with the symbol of a huge open eye engraved upon, coloured red in distinction. The door was circular with several thick iron locks holding it in place around its outer edge, clasping it tight like the legs of some colossal spider. The entire thing had the look of an eye of some giant made of metal and the sight of it caused Raziel to momentarily pause.

Around the door the wall curved out to either side until they arrived back at the top of the stairs. But the walls were strange. Some sort of contraption made of the same golden metal was set into them, a series of rails which ran back and forth and crisscrossed one another in a strange configuration. Below these rails were stone braziers with dancing flames burning within them. Each brazier seemed set at some crucial point in between the rails, over what looked like a thick pipe filled with water, visible through a small window set in each one. The heat from the flames was causing the water to gently bubble.

What drew Raziel's attention though were a series of large tiles set into the rails on rungs which seemed to allow them to be moved by some agency. There were about six of them, each one rectangular in shape and almost taller then himself. Each one had upon them a miniature mural depicting a unique event, although they all featured a common element.

The main character of each picture was Raziel-Divus and in each one he was doing something different. In the mural to the left, Raziel's first incarnation seemed to be a child of perhaps three or four standing with tears running down his stern face as he gazed up at the idealised and romanticized opening gates of heaven. In another, further up and off to the right, he was fully grown and glad in armor with sword and shield aloft as he led the devoted forces of the Wheel of Fate into battle. A somewhat interesting one showed the former king of the Divus kneeling before some sort of grate, head in his hands and bowed with untold sorrow.

-0-

**"Another barrier barring my path. The solution undoubtedly lay within these tiles which depicted the life of my first incarnation. But until I had the means of interacting with it, this puzzle would remain unsolved."**

-0-

Try as he might he could see no means of altering the positions of the panels. The solution to the puzzle itself was fairly obvious. They had to be put into their proper order for the door to open. But the tiles looked set and firmly in place, unmoveable by sheer physical force. It was an elaborate and complex lock to be sure but it did ensure that whoever could open it had to be acquainted with the lore of the Divus and have a degree of power. Whatever lay beyond had to be important.

But impeded as he was, Raziel had no choice. Grimly he reached into his cowl and drew out the key he had been given. Pressing its centre he watched as the environment of Fanum-Divus peeled out of existence around him to be replaced barely a few moments later by the Serioli chamber of spirit forging he had left behind. The chamber was dark and lifeless and crumbled off to one side, right where he had left it, were the dusty and broken remains of Zabah's puppet body.

Umah was nowhere to be seen. No doubt after he had left her she had gone back to find Ajatar and Tiamatu. Quickly Raziel made his way out of the chamber and back down the long dark passage which had lead them to it. The skull of the Dragon was still there, half blocking the entrance from the abandoned rookery but the ladies were no longer there. He did notice that one of the Dragon's teeth had been carefully removed though.

No doubt they had gone back to that camp to wait for him and he made his way through the rookery and back up the tunnel to the surface, emerging into the cold night air of Dark Eden's forgotten valley. Sure enough he could still see the camp fire from the crag, nestled between the stones and casting long shadows across the night.

-0-

**"The light did not appear to have sufficiently changed since I had left. Perhaps this time I had been returned not long after I had left. I needed to find the others. Time had come for me to seek their advice."**

-0-

He would certainly have to answer a lot of their questions now, for he had vanished right in front of Umah and she would have told the other two about it. But the time to be open had definitely arrived. Ajatar's tactical experience would be a useful asset, not to mention what she might know of the particulars of the Wheel of Fate religion.

Approaching the camp he could see only two figures by the fire and it did not take him long to recognise the winged outlines of Tiamatu and Ajatar. Umah was currently nowhere to be seen and the two women were talking in low tones, a definite change from the shouting match he had arrived to witness the last time.

"It's Enlil, no doubt about it." Tiamatu was saying, her arms folded over her waist and a frown creasing her brow and its stretched newly fledged wings spread out behind her so much their tips were almost trailing along the ground.

"All of the House of War?" Ajatar asked just as intently, one hand raised to her chin and the other resting on the hilt of one of her short swords. Tiamatu nodded grimly.

"At least the majority of the military." She stated but paused when Raziel stepped into the firelight, blinking in surprise. Ajatar, seeing her reaction, turned and looked back. When she saw the blue wraith she too blinked in surprise but then an angry grimace crossed her face.

The leader of the Serioli marched right up to Raziel, invading his personal space much to his alarm and poked him firmly with one talon.

"And what magic do you have that allows you to vanish?" She demanded flatly, with considerable aggravation. "And then return a day later?"

Raziel started at this intelligence, glancing back and forth quickly between the two of them.

"An entire day has passed?" He was shocked.

"The sun has risen and set since you disappeared." Tiamatu confirmed and she did not look anymore forgiving than Ajatar did, frowning with her blank but seeing eyes narrowed in distaste.

-0-

**"So my traveling between whatever causality Fanum-Divus followed and normal time dilated the more I used the key? I would have to be careful and use it when only absolutely necessary."**

-0-

Was this some sort of trick, either by Asmodeus, Ophiel, both or neither? To make him waste more and more time? Was it simply due to his ignorance of how to use the key properly? Or was it simply a natural consequence of traveling back and forth between two different causalities? There was no way to tell but it left Raziel pondering if it was wise to even use the key again at all.

"Undoubtedly you have a great deal to tell us." Ajatar muttered angrily but gestured off towards the valley's narrow entrance to the south. "But it will have to wait. An army approaches." That brought Raziel out of his musings. He glanced up with wide startled eyes.

"What?" He demanded, perplexed. The Grandmaster of the Serioli's face was stern, angry but also filled with deadly concern.

"The Hylden House of War are almost upon us." She told him grimly. "And ceasefire or not, their leader Enlil is no friend to Vampire kind."


End file.
